“Good-morning, Mr. Dagle,” said Moss, his eyes roaming about the room. “Here I am again, you see, Mr. Dagle; and where is Mr. Newcombe? He’s here, I know.”

“If you know so much you’ve no need to ask,” said Leonard. “Who told you he was here?”

Levy Moss winked one bleared eye cunningly.

“I’m smart, Mr. Dagle; I keep my eyes open and my feet a-moving.”

“Just so,” said Leonard, “and if you’ll be good enough to move them out of my room I shall be obliged. Please observe that these are my rooms, Mr. Moss, and not Mr. Newcombe’s, and that I am not desirous of further visits from you.”

“You’re sharp, too, Mr. Dagle,” said Moss; “but Mr. Newcombe’s here; you don’t want two cups and saucers, and two plates, you know, for your breakfast, eh?”

“Get out!” said Len, who, when he was roused was, like most quiet men, rather hot-headed. “Get out! and, by the way, if you meet Mr. Newcombe, I’d advise you to keep clear of him; he’s back from America and carries two revolvers and a bowie knife, and I needn’t tell you, who know him so well, that he’d as soon put a bullet through your head or stick the knife in between your ribs as look at you—far rather, perhaps.”

Moss turned pale.

“I hope Mr. Jack won’t do anything rash.”

“I won’t answer for him. They don’t think much of killing your sort of people on the other side, Moss. Get out,” and Mr. Moss shuffled out; Leonard bolting the door after him.

Jack came in and sat down quietly and gravely.

“I’ve frightened him,” said Leonard, smiling. “He’ll keep clear of you for a day or two. But how did he know you were back? He couldn’t have been keeping watch for all these months.”

“I don’t know; someone must have seen me, and told him; I don’t know who, Len. I’m going out.”

“Now, Jack?” said Leonard, fearfully.

Jack smiled.

“No, Len; I won’t cut it again without telling you and saying ‘good-by.’ I’m only going for a walk; and I’ll be back to dinner.”

Leonard looked after him, still rather anxiously; there was a look of determination on the pale, thoughtful face which alarmed him.

Jack walked to Regent street—please mark that he didn’t call a hansom; though Len had pressed some money upon him—and then into Piccadilly, and still with the thoughtful look of determination on his face, into Park Lane, and ascended the steps of Lady Bell’s villa.

A footman, who knew not Jack, opened the door, and Jack, who had not any cards, gave his name, which the footman gave to Lady Bell’s maid as “Mr. Bluecut.”

Jack walked into the drawing-room, every article of which was familiar to him; and sat down in the chair which he had so often drawn close to Lady Bell’s, only a few months back; and yet how long, long ago it seemed.

Presently the door opened, and Lady Bell came in.

He saw her in the glass before she saw him.

Tastefully and simply dressed, she looked, if anything, more beautiful than ever, but not so bright and restless; Jack noticed that. There was an undefinable change about her, just as if she had gone through some trouble, or had done battle with some grief.

Suddenly she looked round and saw him, and stopped; one hand holding a chair, her face going from white to crimson.

Jack rose.

“I’ve startled you; I’m very sorry.”

Lady Bell recovered herself, and went to him with outstretched hand and a look in her dark eyes that she tried to keep out of them.

“Jack,” she said, almost involuntarily.

“Yes, it’s I; like the bad penny, back again, Lady Bell.”

And he sat down and laughed.

She sank into a chair beside him, and looked at his careworn face.

“Where have you been?” she asked, softly.

“To America,” said Jack.

“You have been ill?” she said, still more softly.

Jack nodded.

“Yes. I’m all right now. And you? You don’t look quite the thing?”

“Do I not?” she said, with a smile. “I am quite well. And is that all you are going to tell me of your wanderings?”

“No. I’ll tell you everything some other time,” said Jack, quietly.

“You are not going away again, then?” she asked, looking at him, and then away from him.

Jack flushed.

“That depends,” he said, quietly.

“Depends on what?” she asked.

“On you,” he said.

Lady Bell started, and the crimson flush flooded her face and neck. Her lips trembled, and she looked away.

“On me?” she murmured, faintly.

“On you,” said Jack, earnestly. “Lady Bell, I have come back to ask you to be my wife.”

She was silent; her face turned from him, so that he could not see the tears that welled up in her eyes.

Jack took her hand.

“Lady Bell, I know that I am not worthy of you—know it quite well. There isn’t a man in the world who is; I, least of all. I know, too, what the world would say if you should answer ‘Yes.’ It will impute all sorts of base motives to me. But, as Heaven is my witness, it is not for your wealth that I ask you to be my wife. I am poor, and in all sorts of trouble; but if you were poorer than I am I would still ask you.”

“You would?” she murmured.

“Yes,” he said, quietly. “Yes, I can say that, though I tell you in the same breath that I am, at this moment, being hunted for money. And I think you will believe me.”

She made a gesture of assent with her hand.

“Dear Lady Bell,” he continued, “during the last few months I have been looking back to those happy days we spent together; and when a man’s down with the fever he looks back with keen and wise insight into the turn of things, and knows when he was happy in the past, and with whom; and I swore that, if ever I pulled through and got back, I would ask you if you did not think we might be as happy in the future as in the past. Dear Bell, I would try and make you happy. Will you be my wife?”

Trembling in every limb, she sat silent, and with averted face. Then, suddenly and yet slowly, she turned her eyes upon him—eyes full of ineffable love and sadness.

Slowly, softly, she put her other hand in his, and smiled at him.

“You ask me to be your wife, Jack?”

“I do,” he said. “Your answer, dear Bell?”

“Is—No,” she said.

Jack started, and his eyes fell before the deep love and tenderness in hers. He would have drawn his hand away, but she still held it gently.

“Do you ask me why, Jack? I will tell you. It is because you do not love me.”

He looked up with a start, and turned pale.

Lady Bell shook her head gently.

“Do not speak—it is useless. Besides, you would not tell me a lie, Jack. Listen; I, too, have been looking back; I, too, have learned a lesson—a truth—while you have been away. And that truth is, that others may love as truly and deeply as myself; and that others may find it as impossible to forget——”

Jack, pale and agitated, stopped her.

“The past is buried,” he said, hoarsely—“let it rest.”

“It is not buried—it cannot be. See! it revives—springs up, even without the mention of her name. Jack, you do not love me—you cannot; for all your love has been given, is still given, to Una.”

“For Heaven’s sake!” he implored, rising and pacing the room.

Lady Bell looked at him.

“Ah, how you love her still, Jack! See how right I was; and yet you would come to me.”

And the tears fall slowly.

“Forgive me,” said Jack, bending over her humbly, imploringly—“forgive me! You—you are right. But I swear I thought it was over for me. You knew me better than I knew myself.”

“Yes, for a good reason, Jack,” she murmured; “for I love you.”

Jack winced.

“I have been a brute!” he murmured.

“No, Jack,” she said—and she put her hand on his arm and looked up at him with a smile—“you meant well and honestly. You did not know how it stood with you. I could not have loved you so well if you had been false—if you had forgotten her. I have been thinking it out, Jack; and I know now that to love once—as you and I love—is to love forever.”

“But it is past,” he said, “utterly, irrevocably past. You do not know the barrier that stands immovably between her and me.”

“Do I not?” she murmured, inaudibly. “Be it what it will, your love and hers stand firm on either side of it. But no more of that, Jack. I am glad you have come to me—very, very glad. And though I cannot be your wife, Jack”—with what tenderness and sadness those two words were breathed—“I can be your friend. I want you to promise me something.”

Jack pressed her hand. He could not trust himself to speak.

“I want you to promise that you will not go away again, that you will not leave London whatever happens—mind, whatever happens—without letting me know! I may ask that much, Jack?”

“You may ask anything,” he said, huskily; “I will do anything you ask of me—simply anything.”

“I think you would,” she said. “Then I have your promise? And, Jack, this must make no difference between us; you will come and see me?”

“I do not deserve to come within a mile of you.”

She smiled.

“And so punish me for not saying ‘yes,’” she said, with a little attempt at archness. “That would be hard for me, Jack. I should lose lover and friend as well.”

“You are the truest-hearted woman in the world,” said Jack, deeply moved.

“Except one,” said Lady Bell. “There, go now, Jack, and come to dinner tonight, and bring Leonard Dagle with you—another true heart.”

“I will,” said Jack, simply. And he held out his hand.

She held out both of hers, and looked at him with a strange, wistful yearning in her eyes.

“Jack,” she breathed, softly, “will you kiss me for the first and last time?”

Jack drew her toward him and kissed her. Then, with a little sigh, she left him. How Jack got out he knew not, for his eyes were strangely dim and useless.