"Lady Vera, I have to thank you at parting that you have helped to make my stay in England very pleasant," he says, offering his hand, with his soldierly grace. No reproaches for the pain she has caused him, the wrecked heart he carries away from the field whereon he was vanquished. Only the brave, soldierly smile, and the courtly words. He wears the scarlet rose proudly on his breast, though he feels it to be a token of defeat. Lady Vera lays her hand on his and tries to say something very calm and friendly, but the words die on her white lips. She is very pale; he cannot help from seeing that. Her voice is very gentle, but so low he fails to catch the words. She does not look up at him; that is what pains him most. How is he to know that the lowered lids veil the terrible pain in the dark eyes she cannot lift to meet his yearning glance. Others are looking on, and Vera, Countess of Fairvale, is too proud to wear her heart on her sleeve. The message of the rose has failed, and there is now no other sign to tell him that she loves him and would fain take back the denial of yesterday. So he goes, wounded by the coldness of her parting, yet wondering a little why the hand that lay a moment in his own had felt so icy cold. Ah, if he only had guessed the truth. But nothing was further from Captain Lockhart's thoughts than that Lady Vera loved him and longed to let him know the truth. He carried back with him to his native land the memory of a fair face and a heart that seemed colder than the beautiful iceberg to which he had likened her in the bitterness of his pain. For Lady Vera, she glides from the room, calm and cold to all outward seeming, but filled with the bitterness of a great despair. The long night passes in a weary vigil, and the handsome soldier never dreams whose dark eyes watch his departure next morning while the words of his song echo through her heart and brain. "As the sword wears the scabbard, The billow the shore, So sorrow doth fret me Forevermore." CHAPTER XVII. Long before the next season began in London, loud-tongued Madam Rumor was talking of the rich Americans who had bought Darnley House, that splendid mansion, from its ruined owner, and refitted it anew with almost princely magnificence, and filled it with troops of obsequious servants who held it in charge while the owners courted pleasure abroad. The most ridiculous stories were abroad concerning these people. They were said to possess unlimited wealth; their diamonds were believed to equal Queen Victoria's; it was confidently reported and universally believed that they owned mines of gold and diamonds in Nevada and California. If the rumors had been traced back to their source it would have been found that the American ladies themselves had artfully promulgated these reports, but this was not known.