"I have no particular prospects, as you call them," said Anthony, shortly. "If you mean the engagement in which I had the honour to be concerned, it has come to an end." "Does Winifred know this?" Frank was asking very gravely in a moment. "How should she?" said Anthony, angrily. He was intending to speak without excitement, but that little scene under the fir-trees danced up and down before his eyes. "You need not think that I shall tell her," he went on in hot tumult, "for probably at this time Miss Chester is too much taken up with her own affairs to have thought to bestow upon those of other people." "Miss Chester is not going to marry me, if that is what you mean," said Captain Orde, quietly. "I have asked her--more than once--and now for the last time." He spoke in a dull strained voice. For him there was neither charm nor glory, only a dreary pain, a grey colourless sky. Anthony was not worthy of Winifred, but, alas, did he not know that she cared for him; that she was at this very moment, perhaps, weeping for the helplessness, the sadness of her love; that he, whose path must not touch hers any more, might send her the light and joy for which she longed? He did not hear much of what Anthony was saying, until he found that he had left him, and was making his way towards the house with quick, hopeful steps. Frank, who was going up to the clump, stood still and watched. It is a little hard to run for a prize, and see it carried off by some one who has never seemed to set his heart upon it. When a man has struggled neck and neck with you, it is easier to yield than to another who has loitered carelessly, and yet comes up, and sweeps by with triumphant ease. Anthony was going to his victory, while Frank was left out in the cold. Yet, if there are failures out of which grow success, so also there are defeats which bring rejoicing songs, though we do not hear them yet, and all that reaches us is the sadness of sighing and the weariness of tears. Winifred was crossing the hall as Anthony Miles came in. Mrs Orde had caught her for some consultation about Bessie's masters, and she had been obliged for a little while to make and answer indifferent remarks while every nerve was on the strain, until she could bear it no longer, and, escaping from the room, was, as I have said, just crossing the hall when Anthony Miles came in.