not one to do things by halves. Philida, the dear child, is mad with joy about it. You know she's scarce seen the town."

At her last words Yerington suppressed an oath and began a troubled pacing of the room, while the duchess' eyes followed him, amazed at his manner. He ran his hand through his hair; he endeavoured to think out a clear course for himself in the face of this position to which the duchess had committed him. He felt he had been a mere puppet in the dance of circumstance. He did not seek to depreciate the extent to which he had himself been to blame. He had, in fact, created the situation upon which the duchess' overanxiety had turned the key. He was seeking an exit from it. His mind devised one plan after another, only to dismiss them with a groan. If, indeed, Philida's reputation were entangled in the affair, how was he to seek exit from it without committing her further to a compromising position? He could have groaned aloud as he reviewed the considerations.

The duchess perceived that something was seriously wrong, and for the second time that morning, a doubt of her own policy entered her mind. The cherry-coloured netting lay unheeded upon the floor; the spaniels in vain coaxed her for a caress; she watched Lord Yerington, divided between an inclination towards 'dismay and indignation.

Then a new factor entered the field which completely routed all the forces he had been desperately seeking to gather and array against the circumstances which faced him. His thoughts had been vague and disordered; logic had deserted him; but he had been battling past this point and seeking to bring something like reason from the chaos.

A movement at the door roused him from his abstrac

tion. He turned and perceived that Philida had entered. How could he reason now, when love and longing took the field against his scattered forces? She paused, visibly trembling, unusually pale, wholly betwitching in the added appeal of her weakness. His eyes sprung out to hers hungrily, caught the trembling star within them, formed half of laughter and half of tears.

His battle was lost.

In an instant he was upon his knees before her, his lips upon her hand, all the issues blurred and forgotten in the leap and passion of his love.

CHAPTER XXXV

LONDON TOWN

"Well," says she, " and don't you like the World? I hear it was very clever last Thursday."

-HORACE WALPOLE.

THE weeks that followed were trying ones to Lord Yerington. The duchess had promptly transplanted Philida to London. An old friend had put a house there at her disposal. It was in Piccadilly, set amid large gardens.

The milliner came and went, and Philida suffered herself to be measured and fitted; at moments childishly happy in the prospect of new gorgeousness; at other moments absent and almost impatient of it.

As the days sped, the girl seemed to cling to Sybil with a growing persistence that gave the duchess, despite her many occupations, a jealous pang.

They supported numerous visits of ceremony, and often the carriages and chairs before their doors almost blocked the way.

The Duchess of Marlborough eyed Philida through her quizzing-glass, as the girl stood curtseying before her. "La, Mary," she said, "you should have been a general. You manage your forces most effectively. Strike at once,' you say, 'take the enemy off guard, and don't waste strength on long marches.' You ended this campaign, I'll be bound, before Yerington could say it was begun."

The duchess prepared her most impeccable smile.

"Though the Churchills may be famous for long campaigns, Sarah," she replied, "I've yet to learn that short ones are an evidence of bad faith."

It was a shrewd lunge at the late duke's tactics, and Lady Hervey, who was calling at the time, took pains to spread it, together with a vivid picture of her Grace of Marlborough's blank stare, as she stood glaring, impotent to reply. These dames had crossed swords again, and, as usual, it was not the Duchess of Croome who came off second best.

Lord Yerington paid his respects at proper intervals, but the intercourse between Philida and himself increased in constraint. They were drifting further and further out of touch with one another. The formalities of that age, as extreme as its licence, prevented this being observable to outsiders, and the duchess was determined to hold Philida with a firm hand. She had had enough of that young lady's independence, and resolved not to relax her vigilance until Yerington himself became responsible for her. She still held back the news of the girl's inheritance in deference to her entreaties and to her own promise, but at moments it trembled upon the tip of her tongue.

When at last news of it did leak out, it came from an unexpected source.

As the days passed, Yerington grew more miserable. His views had always been clear cut, when he had troubled himself to formulate them definitely. Now he felt, as he looked back, that he should have explained his position to the duchess on the day of his return after Philida's unfortunate experience with Lady Caroline, and then have left the duchess to act as she thought wisest. Now, hour by hour, and day by day, he became more hopelessly committed to his dissimulating rôle, and his contempt for himself grew as his passion for Philida increased. He assented to the duchess' plans for the ball, even giving his assent to the list of guests, which she went through the mere form of handing to him for approval. At each

step of the way he told himself that he had gone so far, of what avail to stop here? Furthermore, the duchess had so entangled the situation that he could not clearly see what course would compromise Philida the least. Unconsciously, she tempted him on and confused the clearness of his reason.

He avoided his friends at the coffee-houses, and began systematically to arrange his affairs. His melancholy and abstraction made him the butt of the town. Captain Elliot was now so completely in the toils of Mistress Armytage, that he gave less heed than usual to his friend's moods, and lumped them all to the account of master Cupid.

Now, into this vortex of divided impulses and conflicting feelings, another element was introduced. A young soldier, a Captain Darlington, had recently returned from a sojourn in America. He was a son of an intimate friend of the duchess', who presented him to Philida, and encouraged him to frequent calls. He was a simple, truehearted lad and his blue eyes looked out of his face with a winning directness. He was soon fetching and carrying for Philida, her slave and humble adorer.

Yerington watched this friendship with growing disquiet. He saw that when in Captain Darlington's society, her eyes danced, and that she was full of a thousand witcheries which he himself had known in Mistress Marjorie, but which she now reserved for this lad only. To him she was grave, even embarrassed, avoiding him when it could be accomplished without creating comment. And so to Lord Yerington's perplexities was added the bite of a fierce jealousy.

Mansur's path and his own crossed more than once. That worthy had changed. His brilliant smile still played mechanically upon his lips, but in his heart he carried a consuming anger that blanched his face, and he had