“Her name is Laura Treherne,” said Leonard.

“Laura Treherne. Never heard the name before.”

“Nor I, but it belongs to the most beautiful creature I have ever seen.”

“That’s because you haven’t seen Una Rolfe,” put in Jack, coolly. “But I say, Len, what has come to us? We’ve both caught the universal epidemic at the same time. It’s nothing wonderful in me, you know—but you—you, who wouldn’t look at a woman! Have you got it bad, Len?”

“Very bad, Jack. Yes, the time which Rosseau calls the supremest in one’s life, has come to me. As a novice in the art of love-making, I come to you for advice.”

“Why, it’s easy enough in your case. You know where to put your hand upon the lady. What are you to do? Why, disguise yourself as a sweep, and go and sweep the chimneys at 24 Cheltenham Square, or pretend you’re the tax collector, or ‘come to look at the gas meter.’ You’ve got half a dozen plans, but I—what am I to do? I’ve seen the most beautiful creature in existence, and if I’m not in love with her——”

“I should say you were,” said Leonard, gently.

“Yes, I am. I knew it when I found that confounded cottage empty. But what am I to do? I haven’t the faintest clew to her whereabouts. The old gentleman with the hatchet may have murdered his whole family—her included—or emigrated to Australia.”

“It is very strange. Didn’t you notice any sign of a move about the place the first night you were there?”

“No, none. Everything looked as if it had been going on for a hundred years—excepting Una—and meant to go on for another hundred. Len, I’m afraid we’ve been bewitched. Perhaps it’s all a dream; I haven’t been down to Hurst and you haven’t been down to Wermesley. We shall wake up directly—oh, no! The poor squire! Len, it’s all true, and we’re a couple of young fools!”

“Speak for yourself, old fellow. I have been a fool until three days ago, now I am as wise as Solomon, for I have learned what love is.”

“So have I—I have also learned the vanity of human wishes, and the next thing I shall have to learn will be some way of earning a livelihood. I should prefer an honest one, but—poor men can’t afford to be particular, and honesty doesn’t seem to pay now-a-days. I feel so hard up and reckless that I could become a bank director or a member of Parliament without feeling a pang of conscience.”

Leonard looked up at him, for the vein of bitterness was plainly to be detected running through Jack’s banter; and Leonard knew that when Jack was bitter—which was but once a year, say—he was reckless.

“We must talk it over. Sit down—get off that table; you’re making a perfect hash of my papers—and let’s talk it over. You won’t go out tonight.”

“Yes, I shall. I shall go down to the club.”

“No, no, keep away from the club tonight, Jack.”

“What are you afraid of? Do you think I shall want to gamble? I’ve no money to lose.”

“That’s the very reason you’ll want to play. Do keep at home tonight.”

“I couldn’t do it, old man,” he said. “I’m on wires—I’m all on fire. If I sat here much longer, I should get up suddenly, murder you, and sack the place. The Savage has got his paint on, and is on the trail.”

“Don’t be a fool, Jack. You are hot and upset. Keep away from the club tonight. Well, well—let the ecarte alone, at any rate.”

“All right, I’ll promise you that. I won’t touch a card tonight. Ecarte! I couldn’t play beggar-my-neighbor tonight! Len, I wish you were a bigger man; I’d get up a row, and have a turn-to with you. Sit down here! I couldn’t do it. I want to be doing something—something desperate. You can sit here and dream over your complaint; I can’t—I should go mad! Don’t sit up for me.”

Leonard looked after him as he disappeared into one of the two bedrooms which adjoined the common sitting-room, and, with a shake of his head, muttered, “Poor Jack!” and returned to his work.

Jack took a cold bath, dressed himself, and merely pausing to shout a good-night, as he passed down the stairs, went into the street, and jumped into a hansom, telling the man to drive to the Hawks’ Club.

It was rather early for the “Hawks,” and only a few of them had fluttered in. It was about the last club that such a man as Jack should have been a member of. It was fast, it was expensive, it was fashionable, and the chief reason for its existence lay in the fact that play at any time, and to any extent, could be obtained there.

When Jack entered the cardroom, that apartment was almost empty, but the suspicious-looking tables were surrounded by chairs stuck up on two legs, denoting that they were engaged, and those men who were present were all playing.

Every head was turned as he entered, and a buzz of greeting rose to welcome him.

“Halloa; you back, Jack!” said a tall, military-looking man, who was known as the “Indian Nut,” because he was one of the most famous of our Indian colonels. “You’re just in time to take a hand at loo.”

“No; come and join us,” said young Lord Pierrepoint, from another table, at which nap was being played.

But if you could only wring a promise out of Jack, you could rest perfectly certain that he would keep it; and he shook his head firmly.

“Nary a card.”

“What! Don’t you feel well, Jack?”

“No, I’m hungry. I’m going to get something to eat.”

“Dear me, I didn’t know you did eat, Jack. However, man, come and sit down, and don’t fidget about the room like that.”

“Len’s right, the club won’t do neither. I couldn’t hold a card straight tonight. I’ll get some dinner, and go back, and we’ll have it all over again.”

It was a wise and virtuous resolution; and, unlike most resolves, Jack meant to keep it. But alas! before he had got through with his soup, the door opened and two men strolled in.

They were both young and well-known. The one was Sir Arkroyd Hetley; the other, the young Lord Dalrymple, whose coronet had scarcely yet warmed his forehead, as the French say.

Both of them uttered an exclamation at seeing Jack, and made straight for his table.

“Why, here’s the Savage!” exclaimed Dalrymple. “Back to his native forest primeval.”

“Been on the war trail, Jack?” asked Sir Arkroyd. “How are the squaws and wigwams? Seriously, where have you been, old man?”

“Yes, I have been on the war trail,” he said.

“And got some scalps, I hope,” said Dalrymple. “What are you doing—dining? What do you say, Ark, shall we join him? It’s so long since I’ve eaten anything that I should like to watch a man do it before I make an attempt.”

The footman put chairs and rearranged the table, and the two men chatted and conned over the carte.

“You don’t look quite the thing, Jack. Been going it in the forest, or what?”

“Yes, I’ve been going it in the forest, Dally.”

“Been hunting the buffalo and chumming up with his old friend, Spotted Bull,” said Arkroyd. “Bet you anything he hasn’t been out of London, Dally.”

“Take him,” said Jack. “I’ve been out of London on a little matter of business.”

“He’s been robbing a bank,” said Arkroyd, “or breaking one.”

“Neither. Stop chaffing, you two, and tell a fellow what’s going on.”

“Shall we tell him, Dally? Perhaps he’ll try to cut us out. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to start a joint stock company, all club together, you know, and work it in that way, the one who wins to share with the other fellows.”

“Wins what? What on earth are you talking about? Is it a sweepstake, a handicap, or what——”

“No, my noble Savage. It’s the heiress.”

“Oh,” said Jack, indifferently, and he sipped his claret critically.

“What has come to you, Jack? Have you decided to cut the world or have heiresses become unnecessary? Perhaps someone has left you a fortune, old man; if so, nobody will be more delighted than I shall be—to help you spend it.”

A flush rose to Jack’s face, and his eyes flashed. He had been drinking great bumpers of the Hawks’ favorite claret—a heady wine which Jack should never have touched at any time, especially not tonight.

“No, no one has left me a fortune; quite the reverse. But you’d better tell me about this heiress, I see, or you’ll die of disappointment. Who is she—where is she?—what is she? Here’s her good health, whoever she is,” and down went another bumper of the Lafitte; and as it went down, it was to Una he drank, not to the unknown one.

“Do you remember Earlsley?” said Arkroyd. “Oh, no, of course not, you must have been in your cradle in the wigwam in that time. Well; old Wigsley died and left his money to a fifty-second cousin, who turned out to be a girl. No one knew anything about her; no one knew where to find her; but at last there comes a claimant in the shape of a girl from one of the Colonies—Canada. That isn’t a colony, is it, though? Australia—anywhere—nobody knows, you know. She came over with her belongings—a rum-looking old fellow, with a white head of long hair, like, a—a—what’s got a long head of white hair, Dally?”

“Try patriarch,” murmured the marquis.

“Well, in addition to the money, and there’s about a million, more or less—she’s got the most beautiful, that isn’t the word, most charming, fascinating little face you ever saw. If she looks at you, you feel as if you never could feel an ache or pain again as long as you lived.”

“Ark, you’ve had too much champagne.”

“No; ’pon my honor. Isn’t it right, Dally?”

“Yes, and if she smiles,” said Dalrymple, “you never could feel another moment’s unhappiness. The prettiest mouth—and when it opens, her teeth——”

“Oh, confound it!” exclaimed Jack, brusquely. “You needn’t run over her points as if she were a horse; I don’t want to buy her.”

As a matter of fact, he had only caught the last word or two, for while Arkroyd had been talking he had been thinking of that other beautiful girl—not a doll, with teeth and a smile, but an angel, pure and ethereal—a dream—not a fascinating heiress.

“Buy her!” exclaimed Arkroyd. “Listen to him! Don’t I tell you she’s worth a million?”

“And I’d make her Countess of Dalrymple tomorrow if she hadn’t a penny, and would have me,” said Dalrymple.

“Try her,” said Jack, curtly.

“No use, my dear Savage,” he said, tugging at his incipient fringe of down ruefully. “She won’t have anything to say to yours truly, or to any one of us for that matter. She only smiles when we say pretty things, and shows her teeth at us. Besides, the title wouldn’t tempt her. She’s got one already. Don’t I tell you she’s one of the Earlsley lot? No; we’ve all had a try, even Arkroyd. He even went so far as to get a fellow to write a poem about her in one of the society journals, and signed it ‘A. H.;’ but she told him to his face that she didn’t care for poetry. It was a pretty piece, too, wasn’t it, Ark?”

“First-rate,” said Arkroyd, with as much modesty as if he had written it. “But it was all thrown away on Lady Bell.”

“On whom?” said Jack, waking up again.

“On Lady Bell—Isabel Earlsley is her name. You’re wool-gathering tonight, Jack.”

“Oh, Lady Bell, is it?” said Jack, carelessly. “Go ahead. Anything else?”

“No, that’s all, excepting that I’ll wager a cool thousand to a china orange that you’ll change your tone when you see her, Savage.”

“Perhaps,” said Jack, “but your description doesn’t move me; not much, Ark. You’re not good at that sort of thing. It isn’t in your line. The only things you seem to have remarked are her smile and her teeth.”

“Savage, you are, as usual, blunt, not to say rude. Let us have another bottle of Cliquot.”

Jack shook his head, but another bottle came up, and he sat and took his share in silence, and, indeed, almost unconsciously. For all the attention he paid to the chatter of his two friends they might not have been present.

His thoughts flew backward to the shady grove of Warden Forest, to the girl who, like a vision of purity and innocence and loveliness, had floated like a dream across his life.

He gave one passing thought to Len, too, and his story.

It was a strange coincidence that they should both have met their fates at one and the same time, or nearly so.

He would have thought it stranger still if he could have lifted the veil of the future and seen how closely the web of his life was woven with the woof, not only of Una’s, but of Laura Treherne, and also of Lady Bell Earlsley.

All unconscious he had turned a leaf of his life’s book, and had begun a new chapter in which these three women were to take a part.

But he sat and drank the champagne, knowing nothing of this, and—I am sorry to have to say it—he was rapidly arriving at that condition in which it is dangerous to be within a mile of that fascinating fluid. When a man passes from a state of half-feverish restlessness and dissatisfaction to one of comparative comfort, and that by the aid of the cheering glass, it is time to put the cheering glass aside and go home.

Jack did not go home; on the contrary, he went into the billiard-room, and Cliquot followed, as a matter of course.

For a time Jack had managed to forget everything excepting his promise to Len; he would not enter the card-room, but he stuck to pool and champagne.