Nell of Shorne Mills

"No," she replied. "A gentleman went with her."

The earl laid down his knife and fork suddenly, then picked them up

again, and made a great fuss with the remains of his cutlet.

"Oh! Did you--er--did you hear who it was?"

"Yes," said Nell, "but I can't remember his name. It has quite gone for

the moment;" and she knit her brows.

The earl stared straight at the épergne.

"Was it--Sir Archie Walbrooke?" he said, in a dry, expressionless voice.

Nell laughed, as one laughs at the sudden return of a treacherous

memory.

"Of course, yes! That was the name," she said brightly. "How stupid of

me!"

But Lord Wolfer did not laugh. He bent still lower over the cutlet, and

worried the bone a minute or two in silence; then he consulted his

watch, and rose.

"I beg you will excuse me," he said. "I have an appointment--a

meeting----"

He mumbled himself out of the room, and Nell sat and gazed at the door

which had closed behind him.

She was too innocent, too ignorant of the world, to have even the

faintest idea of the trouble which lowered over the house which she had

entered; but a vague dread of something intangible took possession of

her.