He had turned on his heel to withdraw, when he was made aware that some one else was coming on the scene. He glanced towards the door, and then with a bow of silent apology drew the curtains across again as he had found them. This done, he turned round and stood facing whoever might come in. He had expected Despencer, and he was right. But Despencer had not come alone. He had had another object in view all this time, and what that object was was now revealed. Having arranged for what promised to be a stormy scene between Hammond and the Marquis of Severn, having fired his train and calculated the time required for it to reach the mine, he had now brought the marchioness to witness the explosion. The marchioness entered quickly, her face alight with suspicion. Despencer had skilfully aroused her expectations, without committing himself to any definite statement. Her eye instantly fell on the curtain, and she divined that it concealed a mystery. “Why is that curtain closed?” she demanded, advancing towards it. “Is there any one in the window?” There was just one instant in which Hammond hesitated, nearly carried away by the temptation to let her draw back the curtain and overwhelm those two by whom he deemed that he had been deceived. Then, just as the horrified Gerald was about to step forward, Hammond planted himself right in front of the marchioness. “No!” he said, firmly. “There is no one there.” She stopped unwillingly and looked at him. He looked at her, and to that look she yielded. A moment afterwards he was leading her out of the gallery on his arm, while Captain Mauleverer escorted Despencer in the rear. SCENE XIII THE MARCHIONESS AT BAY “Has anything happened?” “The worst has happened.” It was the morning after the concert, and the sedulous Despencer had called upon his exacting patroness, as in duty bound. The marchioness had only just descended; she had made a hurried toilette, and in consequence the pearl powder was not quite so delicately shaded off round her neck as usual, and her waist was at least half an inch wider than its wont. Such touching traces of maternal anxiety were not lost on the observant Despencer. There is no eye like that of love. “Why, what is it? You alarm me,” he said, lazily sinking into a chair in front of the marchioness. They were in her boudoir, an apartment which ladies reserve for the reception of gentlemen who do not happen to be married to them. The Marquis of Severn had not been in his wife’s boudoir for ten years. “That man Hammond has had the audacity to send a note to Victoria this morning asking her to release him from their engagement,” the marchioness announced. “Why on earth has he done that?” “He says he finds he has mistaken the nature of his feelings for her,” said the marchioness, with fine scorn. “What a ridiculous idea! As if his feelings had anything to do with it! The man must be a scoundrel.”