Not unnaturally Dolores failed to realize at once the utter ruin that Blake had brought upon himself by overthrowing the pillars of his temple. She was too intent upon her own tragedy. With Blake out of the way, Lord James would of course have no difficulty in winning Genevieve. There was now no hope for her.

She flung herself down in a chair, with a childlike wail. "Why did he do it? Oh! why did he do it? Oh, Jimmy! you'll never look at me now! If only I could hurt mamma!"

She bent over, weeping with bitter grief and anger.

She was still sobbing and crying when, sometime later, Lord James slipped hastily in from the cardroom. He closed the door swiftly and hurried toward the table, his eyes widening with his attempt to see clearly in the half light of the library.

"Tom, old man!" he called eagerly. "I'm now free to see you home. We'll slip out the side entrance—" He stopped short, perceiving that the big chair was empty, and that the figure in the chair across was not a man's.

"Er—beg pardon!" he stammered. "I—er—expected to find my friend here. Believe me, I would not have intruded—"

"So you d—don't consider me a friend!" retorted Dolores, vainly striving to hide her grief under a scornful tone.

"Miss Gantry!" he exclaimed. "Is it you?"

"It's not Vievie, that's certain. The sooner you run along and mind your business, the better."

"Miss Dolores, I—I really can't see why you hold such a dislike to me. I'll go immediately. I hadn't the remotest idea of intruding. You'll believe that? Only, y'know, I left Tom—Mr. Blake—in here. I came to go home with him. He was quite knocked-up. He should not have come to-night."

"You knew it!—you knew it, and left him in here alone!"

"Why, what do you mean, Miss Dolores? You alarm me! I left him asleep—fancied he'd not be disturbed in here—that an hour or so of sleep would freshen him up for the drive home."

"So you left him—alone—for mamma and that despicable creature to do their worst!"

"Miss Dolores, I—I beg your pardon, but I quite fail to take you. If anything has happened to Tom—"

"Regrets! What's the good of them, when it's too late?"

"Too late? Surely you cannot mean that he—?"

"Yes, the worst, the very worst,—and that miserable, detestable creature knew it when he offered him the wine. I believe he brought it in deliberately to tempt him."

"Wine? He drank! How long ago? Where is he now? I must try to check him."

"If only you could! But it's too late. He went off with Laffie."

"Not too late! The craving has been checked once—I've seen it done."

"But this time it's not the craving."

"How's that?"

"It's because he was driven desperate. He took it deliberately—intentionally."

"Impossible! Tom would never—"

"He would! He did! I saw him. But don't you blame him. She's the one. How could he know better, in his condition?—utterly tired out! She drove him to it, I tell you."

"She—Genevieve? I assure you—"

"No, no! mamma, of course! She told him a pack of lies—took away all his hope. She made him think that Vievie had never really loved him."

"Impossible!—unless your mother herself believes it."

"Oh, she believes it—or thinks she does. She's so anxious—so anxious!" The girl sprang up and stamped her foot. "Oh! I wish she and her meddling were in Hades!"

"My dear Miss Dolores!" protested Lord James, tugging nervously at his mustache.

She whirled upon him in hysterical fury. "Don't you call me that! Don't you dare call me that! I won't have it! I won't! I'm not your dear! I tell you—"

His look of blank astonishment checked her in the midst.

"I—I—I didn't mean—" she gasped. "Oh! what must you think of me!"

She turned from him, her face scarlet with shame. But in the same instant she remembered Blake, and forgot herself in the disaster to him.

"How selfish of me, when he—Poor Mr. Blake! What can be done? We must do something—at once!"

"If anything can be done!" said Lord James in a hopeless tone. "You say he took it deliberately?"

"Yes. Can't you see? Mamma had stuffed him with a lot of rot about gratitude—about Vievie sacrificing herself to him on account of gratitude. It's easy enough to guess mamma's little game. Oh! it's simply terrible! Of course he believed it, and of course he planned at once to go away—that's the kind of man he is! He planned to go away—run off—so that Vievie couldn't sacrifice herself."

"My word!"

"And just then Laffie Ashton came back with the wine. I believe he did it a-purpose—that he wanted to get Mr. Blake intoxicated!"

"The unmitigated cad! Yet why should he? It seems impossible that any man—"

"How should I know? He's vicious enough to do anything. But what does that matter? It's Mr. Blake. Can't you see why he took it? He was getting himself out of the way. I didn't understand then what he said—about the bad place being nearer than Alaska—but now I do. What he was determined to do was to get himself out of Vievie's way for good. The quickest that he could do it was to start drinking—go on a spree."

"Gad!"

"And now you stand here like a dummy, when there's a way to save him."
"Yes, yes! I'll go after him!" He started alertly toward the door.

She sprang before him, "No! What good would that do? You know he's set on saving Vievie. He'll not listen to you."

"Gad! That's true. He's hard enough to handle, at best. With this added—Yet I cannot but make the effort. I'll phone Mr. Griffith."

"Griffith? What's the use of wasting time? There's just one person who can save him, and you know it."

"No, unless Griffith—"

"Are you absolutely stupid? Can't you see? It's Vievie alone who—"

"Genevieve!"

"Now's the time for her to do something. She must prove her love. That alone can stop him."

"If she does love him."

"Can you doubt it?"

"She has doubted it."

"She may think she does. But it's all due to mamma's knocking and
suggesting. Vievie loves him as much as he loves her. Needn't tell me!
I know all about it. She made him fail—the time you took him up to
Michamac. This time it's all mamma's fault. Vievie has got to save him!"

"Most assuredly it is hopeless unless she—"

"That's no reason for you to stand here gawking! You've got to go and tell her. She wouldn't listen to me; but you're a man and his friend. You can make her see the injustice of it all. She's to blame as much as mamma. This never would have happened if it hadn't been for her shillyshallying."

Lord James paused before replying, his clear gray eyes dark with doubt and indecision.

"My word!" he murmured. "Could I but feel certain—This second failure, in so short a time! There is her future to be considered, as well."

"Her future as Countess of Avondale!" scoffed the girl.

"No, I assure you, no!" he insisted. "Can you believe I could be so low?—and at such a time as this! It was of the consequences to her as well as to him—He has failed again. Can he ever win out, even should he have her aid?"

"You claim to be his friend!"

"For his sake, no less than hers—Consider what it would mean to a man of his nature, unable to check himself in his downward course, yet conscious that it was wrecking her happiness, possibly her life."

"It won't happen, not if she really loves him. You don't half know him. He could do anything—anything!—if she went to him and asked him to do it for her sake."

"Could I but be sure of that!"

"Pah! You pretend to be his friend. How long would you stand here fiddling and fussing, if you didn't want her yourself?"

"That—it is too much!" he said, his face pale and very quiet. "I had ventured to hope that I might overcome your dislike. Now I see that it is as well that you have refused to regard me other than as you have."

"Why, what do you mean? I—I don't understand."

"You have always been candid. Permit me to be the same. The truth is that I had begun to wish Tom success—not alone because of my friendship for him. But now I realize that his fight is hopeless. I shall do my utmost to make your cousin happy."

Dolores stared at him with dilating eyes. "Jimmy!" she whispered. "It can't be you mean that you—that you—?"

"Yes," he answered. "Pardon me for saying anything about it. I shall not bother you again."

"Oh, thank you!" she scoffed. "So now you're going to stay quiet and wait for Vievie to fling herself into your arms when she hears about your rival."

The young Englishman flushed and as suddenly became white, yet his voice was as steady as it was low. "I shall do whatever she wishes, if she finds that she does not love him."

"And that's all?" she jeered. "You'll calmly keep out of it while he commits hara-kiri, and then you'll step into his shoes."

"No. I shall go to her at once and ask her to save my friend—if she loves him."

"You will?"

"Yes."

"You will!" cried the girl, her cheeks flushing and her black eyes sparkling with delight—"You will! Oh, Jimmy!"

Even as the words left her lips, she became conscious of what she had done, and her flush brightened into a vivid scarlet blush. She turned and fled from him, panic-stricken.

He stood dazed, unable at first to believe what her tone and look had betrayed to him. When, after some moments, his doubt gave way to certainty, his face lighted with what might be termed joyous exasperation.

"My word!" he murmured. "The little witch! I'll pay her out jolly well for it all!"

But his blissfully exultant vexation was no more than a flash that deepened the gloom with which he recalled the disaster to his friend.

"Gad!" he reproached himself. "What am I thinking of—with her and
Tom—"

He turned quickly to the door of the cardroom.