And at this moment he had seen Jack Falconer emerge from a still more shadowy corner, a cigar between his teeth. Drawing his wife's arm through his, Falconer nodded to the other man and said they had all better be going up. Bulstrode noted bitterly the satisfaction on Falconer's bestial, indulgent face and the content that man felt with himself this evening, his triumph at the race's termination. His horse had won the stakes and was famous, his wife had been called to-day the loveliest woman in Trouville, and not for the first time Bulstrode suffered from it, the proprietorship with which Falconer considered his wife. For the smallest part of a second he fancied that the woman drew away, half turned away, looked toward him; and in dread that he might, if he met her eyes, see some look like appeal, Bulstrode avoided meeting her glance. He saw them pass under the glass roof of the hôtel leaving him standing alone. The deserted lover waited until they had disappeared; then, turning abruptly, vaguely in search of human beings with whom he might exchange a word should he feel inclined to talk, dreading the deserted gardens ami finding his own rooms the dreariest prospect of all, he went into the Casino with the intention of waiting for the Frenchman who he thought more than likely would come and join him there. The Marquis failing him, Bulstrode chose a place not far from the table where the lovely woman, that Mrs. Falconer and himself had remarked, seated herself before the game. Bulstrode's sense of desolation and loneliness would not leave him. If his luck had been bad, the excitement of the sport might have brought him some sensation; but, on the contrary, he won. "Only," he said humorously, as he gathered up his winnings, "only unlucky in love!" It was well on in the night when he thrust his last roll of bank notes into his pocket. He had beaten the bank; he had raked up and stuffed away a small fortune. As he wandered out through the deserted rooms, he noted, bent over the table, her head in her hand, the woman who, in spite of his sincere absorption in Mary Falconer, had, like a temptation, crossed his mind when he first came into the Casino. No one disturbed her, and she had remained in this dejected posture for some time. This one amongst the many women in Trouville, Bulstrode and his friends had remarked for several days. She had first appeared alone; made a discreet _début_ on the beach, passed through the Rue de Paris and kept away from the more public parts of the town. Later she had been joined by a man well known in the world, the Prince Pollona, who was travelling incognito. The woman's beauty and manner were such that her actual standing was a mooted question; it had even been remarked that she was the princess herself incognita, but that they all knew to be impossible.