"A man must be far gone, indeed, to throw away twenty thousand a year and an earl's daughter for the _beaux yeux_ of a pretty little penniless girl. Such luck is not met with every day." "Leonora is worth it all," said Lancaster, warmly. "Yes, if one could win her; but then you were throwing all away, without anything in return. You should have remembered that you would lose all and gain nothing. What says the poet: "'What care I how fair she be, If she be not fair for me?'" Lancaster said nothing, only sighed furiously. "Look here, old fellow," said his friend. "Tell me the truth. If you could get Leonora, would you really throw over all the rest for her? Would you do the 'all for love, and the world well lost' business?" An eloquent look from Lancaster's dark-blue eyes was his only answer. "You would. Then you are far gone indeed. I do not think I ought to countenance you in such egregious folly. I think you will be cured of your madness when I tell you her second reason for not loving me." Lancaster looked at him imploringly. "Say what you are going to say, De Vere," he said, almost roughly, in the misery that filled his voice; "but, for God's sake, don't chaff! Think what I've endured already. I love Leonora to madness. If you think there's any hope for me, say so at once and put me out of misery." "Lancaster, I'm sorry for you, upon my soul, but I don't think there's any chance for you at all. Miss West told me quite frankly that she was in love with another man." Lancaster gives a great start. He says, hurriedly: "Who is the happy man?" "She would not tell, but of course it can not be you, because she says it is quite a hopeless passion. He does not love her; she admitted that with the reddest blushes." "No, of course, it can not be me, for I am quite sure she knows my heart. I have shown her my love unwittingly more than once, and been laughed at for my pains," Lancaster admits, with bitter chagrin and despair struggling in his voice. "Poor little girl! It is strange that she should love in vain. It is a cold-hearted man indeed that could be insensible to so much beauty and sweetness," De Vere muses aloud. "I think it is some one she has left in New York, for she and Miss West are going to sail for America next week, to make their home there." "Then that ends all," Lancaster says, moodily. "Yes," De Vere answers, rather gravely. "And there will be one page folded down forever in both our lives, eh, old fellow? We are in the same boat, you see. But take my advice, Lancaster, don't let this episode spoil your prospects. Throw up the India scheme, and go home and marry the earl's daughter." CHAPTER XXXVIII. Lady Lancaster was surprised and angry and frightened all in one when she heard that Leonora West had refused Lieutenant De Vere. She made him own the truth when he came to make his hasty adieus, and she roundly abused the "pert minx," as she called her, for her "impertinence and presumption."