"Not always, dear," says his wife rebukingly. "Three times within a fortnight. I cannot understand it myself. I should like to give him a hint, but I am afraid. He might take offence, and I know what men are. Warn them against a woman, and they immediately run after her; try to turn them from a purpose, and they throw themselves heart and soul into it." "You should treat them as the Irishman did his pigs--drive them one way and turn their heads another," laughs Colonel Carlisle. "But you surely don't imagine he cares about Lady Jean?" "No; I give him credit for better sense. But she is a dangerous woman, and I am certain has some purpose in view. I know she hates Lauraine; I am equally certain that she knows of Keith's infatuation for her, and I feel convinced she is trying to work some mischief. You remember her plot about getting him to Falcon's Chase?" "Yes. That was a piece of devilry, and no mistake. I have thought more of the young fellow since his refusal than ever I did before." "Keith is a strange character," says Lady Etwynde; "so headstrong and passionate, yet so loving and true; so wild, and yet so easily controlled; so selfish, and yet so weak. Lauraine has a great influence over him--more than any one else has, I think. I believe when once she made him see things in their true light, once she showed him that the love that would dishonour a woman is the last love worthy of her acceptance, he would turn from what even seemed her own tempting. But he must have known it could not be that." "Lauraine is a good, true woman, though she has made a fatal mistake in life, and now it is too late to remedy it," says the Colonel regretfully. "What sad words those are, 'too late!' Just to have missed all that makes life desirable, just to meet and love, and find that Fate has placed an impassable barrier between you and that love. Ah, me!" "Don't sigh!" whispers his wife tenderly. "Our 'too late' was just in time after all." "Thank God for that!" "I do," she answers fervently. "But how my own happiness makes me regret her loss! I never thought I could love any woman so dearly as I love Lauraine; and I feel, oh! so sorry for her now!" "So do I--for Keith." "And you think we can do nothing?" "I fear not. It is a delicate matter. He may be only striving for forgetfulness after all. Men do foolish and desperate things sometimes for love's sake." "That is one of the things we women who love you can't understand," says Lady Etwynde. "To us those excesses to which we are accused of driving you seem degrading and contemptible. We can only excuse sins that are not against ourselves, I suppose." "Doubtless it looks cowardly," says her husband, "to fling away our self-respect because something has not been as we wished it; but then that something is worth everything else in the world, or we think so, and losing it, all else seems of no account."