assented to his request, as she would have assented now if he had asked for the moon or a baby's rattle.

For three or four days, Mrs. Collette had neither heard nor seen anything of the man whom she was pledged to marry, and though personally he had grown distasteful to her, it would have been unnatural if she had not experienced a few qualms of anxiety on the subject. She knew that his masterful married daughter had come up to stay with him, and by intuition she knew that this married daughter was in opposition to her for other reasons than those connected with Lord Roydmore. In the world in which Captain Stafford lived, his long-drawn-out infatuation for Helen Collette was an old tale oft told. It was more than likely that pretty Florence Graves had heard of it, and rumour said once upon a time pretty Florence Graves had tried every art she knew to gain the empire over his heart. Putting these things together, Mrs. Collette felt she was not very far out in assuming that if Florence could give her (Helen) a fall with Lord Roydmore, she would do so.

While still in perplexity and doubt, and before Jane came on her mission, Mr. Wyndham called with a petition that still further complicated the tangled skein of Helen's life.

CHAPTER X.

"MY OWN!"

UNCERTAINTY and perplexity, indignation at being interfered with antagonistically in the matter of her marriage by the same woman who had once dared to attempt to annex her lover, were in absolute dominion over Helen's mind that day, when Mr. Wyndham appeared, oddly enough without his sister!

Helen was so accustomed to see the cosy, genial old pair trotting in together, that for a moment she experienced a shock as the thought crossed her mind that Miss Dorothy must be dead! Old Ralph's face looked preternaturally grave. Altogether, the signs of sorrow about him were sufficiently strong to startle Helen into saying:

"What is the matter? Where is Miss Dorothy?"

"Dorothy is well, quite well, my dear; she sends her best love to you, and hopes――'

He paused, struggled with a little throat difficulty, and then, with the gloom deepening on his face as he remembered how old and fat he was, he went on :

"Dorothy sends you this little note, my dear, and a ring that belonged to our mother, and that is consequently of priceless worth to us."

Helen took the note and ring with one of the sweetest looks of gratitude of which her well-fringed, soft, fathomless grey eyes were capable. Until she had the ring on her finger, and was reading the note, it did not occur to Mr. Wyndham that he had been specially instructed not to give her either until he had won her consent to be his wife.

For it had come to this, that his sister's persuasions, joined to his own inclinations, had overcome his scruples against uniting his December to her ripe, warm, beautiful July, and to-day, though he feared his fate terribly, he had come to put it to the touch.

Helen read through the note rapidly, calmly, and with the most complete comprehension of its meaning. It hailed her as sister, it laid all authority over all things beautiful down at their Redhill home at her feet. It thanked her with touching gratitude for bringing such joy into the life of the writer's dear brother. In fact, altogether, it put another very strong string on to Helen's bow.

"I gave you that note too soon," he said tremulously, when she had read it, and sat with downcast face twiddling the ring round her finger.

Silence was safer than speech! Helen took the safer part.

"You are shocked, outraged at my presumption, and no wonder!" he went on, with miserable humility; "forgive me, my child, it was the desire of the moth for the star, but I'm such an old moth that I ought to have known better. Forgive me!"

Helen's mind had glanced like lightning through all the possibilities of her own case. Truly she was engaged to marry Lord Roydmore, and truly did she yearn to occupy the position Lord Roydmore could give her. But for several days-days that in the gallop of London life seemed to place an immeasurable period of time between them-she had heard nothing from her hitherto attentive and impassioned swain. In fighting her way to the front, Helen had received many a hard knock, many

a bad bruise. What wonder that she longed for the visible rewards of her distinguished service in her own cause ?what wonder that she was ready to sail into any port out of the

storm ?

Her mind glanced like lightning through all the possibilities of the case. She was between two stools. Lord Roydmore might fail her, was failing her, according to all outward seeming, under family pressure. This true, solid, old mass of flesh and sincerity would feel himself honoured if she took him as a forlorn hope, and would never reproach her for her inability to give him more than the merest gratitude for all that he lavished upon her.

"I have nothing to forgive, and what you are pleased to call the star shall give the moth its desire," she was saying. Her hands were in his, his good old hairless lips were pressing hers, when the door opened injudiciously for once, and Jane Herries came in, straight and swift as an arrow, with the words:

"Dear Mrs. Collette, papa wants you at once; he is ill, so ill that he has sent for Jack. He wants us all to recognise and receive you as our future mother."

Jane had been preparing a dozen neat little speeches on her way over, but this one came from her heart, and was unrehearsed. That it was effectively delivered there can be little doubt, judging from the almost stunning effect it produced upon the thrilled though limited audience.

As the last words flew from her lips, Jane realised that in sincere unconsciousness she had exposed a woman who was cruelly deceiving not only her (Jane's) father, but also the honest-looking old gentleman, who was looking as much ashamed of himself as if he, and not Helen, were guilty of trickery and perfidy. Anything that savoured ever so slightly of underhandedness and double-dealing was repugnant to the girl. But she was largely endowed with that rare spirit of loyalty to her own sex which makes a woman shrink from being the instrument of humiliating torture to another woman. Inexperienced as she was in worldly love and intrigue, her generous nature stood Helen Collette in better stead in this emergency than any care-hardened old feminine diplomat could have done.

"You will spare Mrs. Collette to come and see poor papa now

he is so ill, won't you?" she said, with pretty courtesy, to poor, hot, embarrassed Mr. Wyndham. "She has been so kind to me that we look upon her as one of us; don't we?" she added reassuringly to Helen, and under cover of these words of tact Helen managed to get out of the room.

Of course it was wrong of her to have tacitly accepted Mr. Wyndham's offer while she was distinctly pledged to marry Lord Roydmore. But she had a strong instinct that from some cause or other-what she could not determine, for the atmosphere of the last few days had been full of uncertainty-Lord Roydmore was slipping from her. Her battle with life had been a hard one. Fair as appearances were around her, they were maintained at the cost of unceasing management and finesse. The cheques that fell in now and again from the lavish hands of the Wyndhams did not cover the expenditure which Helen, as a beauty and a society woman, felt not only entitled to, but bound to devote to her pretty and popular self. Sometimes, when she was lying awake at night, her innumerable bills would dance. about like a hideous phantasmagoria, and she would feel as if she were in a lost battle, borne down by the flying. After such nights as these, the necessity for an immediate marriage with some man-any man-who could put her upon the solid golden. pedestal of a good substantial income would be very much impressed upon her. Such nights as these had been frequent of late. It was with a natural feeling of clation that she reflected, while dressing for her visit to Lord Roydmore, that she had definitely accepted the other old man, and could hold him fast.

There was a momentary difficulty about saying good-bye to him. It was impossible to take a properly effective binding farewell of him before Jane; at least, if not impossible, it would be sadly indiscreet. The difficulty was but a momentary one, though. Helen was a woman of resource, one who seldom allowed herself to be baffled. She had no little boudoir to which to summon her ancient but ardent swain, but the dining-room would answer the purpose of my lady's bower for once.

She opened the drawing-room door and stood in the entrance, looking superbly handsome, and as cool as if she had not been. caught by the daughter of one man to whom she was engaged, in the act of kissing another.

"My dining-room clock has stopped, Mr. Wyndham; you are

the only person who sets all its machinery going properly, will you come and wind it up for me? I will not detain you more than a minute, Jane," she added, turning with a winning air of affectionate familiarity towards the young lady who might possibly become her stepdaughter.

"Papa will be impatient; he always is when he doesn't feel well, and then he will scold me," Jane protested, but Helen had piloted Mr. Wyndham out of the room by this time, and Jane's remonstrance fell upon space, and failed to enlighten Mr. Wyndham as to the real relations which existed between his Helen and Lord Roydmore.

Back, ages ago, in his long past almost forgotten youth, Ralph Wyndham had had a romance. It had been a very brief and commonplace one, but it had left its mark upon him for years. He had been engaged to an innocent-looking little country-town girl, who had jilted him and married the riding-master whom Ralph had engaged to teach her to sit upon the horse which he (Ralph) had given her. Her deception had not soured him, but it had hurt him horribly. It had, so to say, taken his taste for women out of him for many a long year. But Helen had restored his long-lost faith to him, and he worshipped her with an idolatry that few, if any, of the younger men who buzzed about her had ever felt.

It was a plain, a very plain podgy little body, but a real big chivalrous soul dwelt within it. When she had swept and shuffled him into the dining-room, she shut the door smartly and began:

"Don't bother about the clock; that is all right, I only wanted to give you the chance of saying good-bye to me properly, Ralph, and to tell you that you must not publish our engagement till I see you again."

He stood on tiptoe and kissed her, then called her the "Queen of his life," and promised to abide by her decision in all things, even to the extent of his not proclaiming his triumph until she gave him permission to do so.

"Excepting to Dorothy. You will let me tell Dorothy tonight? It will make her so happy."

"No, no, no. Dorothy shall be the first to hear it, of course, but not even Dorothy must hear it to-night. I am more romantic than you think, Ralph. I want to have the knowledge