The days go by, Captain Lockhart and the earl's daughter are merely civil--they seldom seem to see each other. Each absorbed in the engagements of the gay season, each drifting further apart in the whirl, there is no time for pardon or reconciliation. Lady Vera finds no time for the nursery now save when the soldier is out. Yet she is ever listening for one step, and the color flies into her cheek when she hears it. Lady Clive is perplexed and sorry because her brother and her favorite do not take to each other. "I thought they seemed made for each other," she complains, to Sir Harry. "And I thought I had managed them so cleverly. But they scarcely seem conscious of each other's existence." "I hope you are not turning match-maker, Nella," Sir Harry Clive replies, laughing. Earl Fairvale sees nothing. Day by day he grows more gloomy, more self-absorbed, and goes less into society. The only interest in his life outside of his adored daughter, centers in the occasional letters that reach him from America. But after each one he grows more sad and gloomy, losing flesh and color daily. Only Vera knows that the vengeance that is the object of his life is so long delayed that the strain on his mind is killing him. For though the most skilled detectives in the world are watching and working, they can find no trace of the secure hiding-place where Marcia Cleveland dwells untroubled by the vengeance from which she has fled. Lady Vera's roses pale when she sees how her father is breaking down--how the mind is wearing out the body, even as the sword wears out the scabbard. "Father, even if you found out her hiding-place, what could you do? What form could your revenge take?" she asks him, mournfully, as she has done many times before. "I cannot tell--but some way would be opened. I should find some vulnerable point at which to strike," he answers, moodily. She twines her fair, white arms about his neck, and presses her fresh young lips to his clouded brow. "Father, this long brooding over your revenge, this hatred, nourished in your heart, is sapping your life," she sighs. "I beg you, for my sake, to give it up, dear father. Give it up, and leave it to Heaven!" He looks at the beautiful, tearful eyes and the sweet face, pale now with its sorrow. "Vera, you come to me with your mother's face, your mother's voice, and ask me not to avenge her ruined life, her broken heart, her mournful death," he answers, bitterly. "Child, you know not what you ask. What can you know of the pangs I have endured? Have you forgotten, too, the indignities heaped upon you in your young, defenseless life?" The dark eyes filled with smouldering wrath. "No, father, never!" she cries; "but it is all past. Mother is safe in Heaven, you and I are together. Let us forget those wicked ones. Surely God will punish them for the ruin they have wrought."