Nell of Shorne Mills

Lord Turfleigh swore behind the hand that still fumbled at his mustache,

and walked away with the jerky, jaunty gait of the old man who still

affects youth, and Lady Luce composed her lovely face into a look of

emotional ecstacy.

"Oh, how beautiful, Drake!" she said. "Do you know that I have been very

nearly crying? And yet it was so sweet, so--so soothing! Who is he? And

what are we going to do now?" she asked, without waiting for an answer

to her first question, about which she was more than indifferent.

Drake looked round for the duchess.

"I must take the duchess in to supper," he said apologetically. "I will

find some one for you--or perhaps you will wait until I will come for

you?"

"I will wait, of course," she said, with a tender emphasis on the "of

course."

Those who had been listening followed Drake and the duchess to the

supper room, talking of the wonderful violin playing as they went; and

Lady Luce seated herself in a recess and waited. Several men came to her

and offered to take her to supper, but she made some excuse for

refusing, and presently Drake returned.

She rose and took his arm, and glanced up at him, not for the first time

that evening, curiously. The easy-going, indolent Drake of old seemed to

have disappeared, and left in his place this grave and almost

stern-mannered man. She had always been just a little afraid of him,

with the fear which is always felt by the false and shifty in the

presence of the true and strong; and to-night she was painfully

conscious of that vague and wholesome dread.

He found a place for her at a small table, and a footman brought them

things to eat and drink; but though she affected a blythe and joyous

mood, tapping her satin-clad foot to the music which had begun again,

she was too excited, too anxious, to enjoy the costly delicacies before

her.

"I have so much to tell you, Drake!" she said, in a low voice, after one

or two remarks about the ball and its success. "It seems years, ages,

since I saw you! Why--why did you go away for so long, Drake? And why

did you not write to me?"

He looked at her with his grave eyes, and her own fell.

"I wrote to no one; I was never much of a hand at letter writing," he

said.

"But to me, Drake!" she whispered, with a pout. "I wanted to hear from

you so badly! Just a line that would have given me an excuse for writing

to you and telling you--explaining----"