"Whom does she think she will get? Does she think she will capture an earl or a duke?" she sneered, and De Vere answered, coldly: "I do not believe that she has any matrimonial designs on any one, Lady Lancaster. She returns to America in a very few days." Lady Lancaster was so surprised that she gave vent to her relief in a hasty exclamation: "Thank Heaven! And I devoutly wish that she had remained there." "There are more persons than one who will agree with your ladyship there," he said, betrayed into a laugh at her naïveté. "Whom?" she exclaimed, with a start. "Myself for one," he answered. "I am not at liberty to implicate any one else." She gave him a savage glance. "Do you mean my nephew?" she inquired. "I said I was not at liberty to name any one else," he replied. Then he went away, and Lady Lancaster straightway confided the fact of his rejection to all the ladies in the house. They all agreed with her that Leonora West was an impertinent minx to have refused such a splendid offer, but that it was a narrow escape for Lieutenant De Vere and that he had need to be very thankful over it. In the meantime, Lady Lancaster's guests grew very curious over her nephew's absence. The earl and his daughter talked of going away. They felt secretly aggrieved and resentful over Lord Lancaster's continued absence. It was a palpable slight to them. They did not believe the story of important business in London. What business could he have? Lady Lancaster wrote her nephew a sharp, imperative letter of recall. She was on thorns lest her long-cherished scheme should fail. She intimated quite plainly that her patience was exhausted, and that if he did not come to terms soon she would never forgive him, and worse still, she would cut him out of her will. Lancaster threw that letter angrily into the fire, and swore to himself that he would not go near Lancaster. He would go off to India, and she might buy another husband for her favorite with the money she prized so much. He would have none of it. In short, our hero was in a most sullen and intractable mood. His heart was sorely wounded, for he had loved Leonora with all the strength and passion of a noble nature. His sorrow for a time completely mastered him. He said to himself that he could not bear to go back now. He must wait a little longer. Then came De Vere with his strange story. Now indeed all was ended, thought the hopeless lover. She was going away, and he would never even see her again, this bright-eyed, soft-voiced girl who had stolen into his heart almost unawares, who had been so cruel to him, who had so lightly scorned him, and yet whom he loved with all the strong passion of his young manhood. Once or twice De Vere reiterated his advice that he should go home and marry Lady Adela, but Lancaster only laughed miserably in his face.