"The flower?" he said unthinkingly. "It is nearly faded already; too poor an offering to make you, Miss Lorton; but if you will accept it----" He had expected her to refuse laughingly, but she replied simply: "Thank you; yes, I should like to have it," and in his surprise he took it from his coat, and, with a bow, handed it to her, wished her good night, and left her. At the door he paused and looked in the direction of Lady Wolfer, met her eyes for an instant, then went out. Nell was about to place the flower on the table, but, quite unthinkingly, stuck it in the bosom of her dress. As she was crossing the room to some people who were taking their departure, the earl came up to her. "I am going to the library presently, and may not see Lady Wolfer before I leave. Will you please tell her that I hope she will not go out to-night? I think she is looking tired--and--and overstrained. Do you not think so?" His tone was so full of anxiety, there was so sad and strained an expression in his grave face, as he looked toward his young wife, who was talking rather loudly and laughing in a way women will when there is anything but laughter in their hearts, that Nell's sympathy went out to him. It was as if suddenly she understood how much he cared for the woman who was wife to him in little more than the name. "Yes, yes! I will tell her," she said. "I am sure she will not go if you do not wish it." He smiled bitterly, and, for once dropping the cold reserve which usually masked him, said, with sad bitterness: "You think she considers my wishes so closely?" Nell looked up at him, half frightened by the intensity of his expression. "Why--yes!" she faltered. He smiled as bitterly as he had spoken; then his manner changed suddenly, and his eyes became fixed on the flower in her dress. "Where did you get that flower? Who----" he asked, almost sternly. Nell's face flamed; then, ashamed of the uncalled-for blush, she laughed. "Sir Archie Walbrooke gave it me," she said. The earl looked at her with surprise, which gradually changed to a keen scrutiny, under which Nell felt her blush rising again. But she said nothing, and, after a moment during which he seemed to be considering deeply, he passed on, his hands clasped behind his tall figure, his head bent. Immediately the last guest had gone, Lady Wolfer went to her own apartments. Nell stood in the center of the vast and now empty room, and looked round her absently, and with that sense of some pending calamity which we call presentiment. Innocent of the world and its intrigues, as she was, she could not fail to have seen that neither the earl nor the countess was happy; and that the endless work and excitement in which they endeavored to absorb themselves only left them dissatisfied and wretched.