You know them too, don't you?'

'Well, considering I meet them out pretty well every night somewhere I ought to do,' the other said, as with slower steps he followed his companion to the carriage.

'How are you, Mr. Hawtrey?' the latter exclaimed, looking up at the man on the box.

The gentleman looked down a little puzzled at the warmth with which the words were spoken by one whose face he did not recall.

'Don't you remember me, sir? I am Edward Hampton.'

'Why, Ned, is it you? You are changed out of all knowledge. You have come back almost as dark as a Malay. When did you arrive?'

'I only reached town yesterday evening; looked up Danvers, and was lucky enough to find him at home. He said he was coming down here to-day, and as it was of no use calling on people in town on the Oaks day I came with him.'

'Are you not going to speak to me, Captain Hampton?'

'I am, indeed, Miss Hawtrey, though I confess I did not know you until Danvers told me who you were; and I do not feel quite sure now, for the Miss Hawtrey I used to know never called me anything but Ned.'

'The Miss Hawtrey of those days was a little tomboy in short frocks,' the girl laughed, 'but I do not say that if I find that you are not so changed in reality as you are in appearance, I may not, perhaps, some day forget that you are Captain Hampton, V.C.' She had stepped down from her lofty seat, and was now shaking hands with him heartily. 'It does not seem six years since we said good-bye,' she went on. 'Of course you are all that older, but you don't seem so old to me. I used to think you so big and so tall when I was nine, and you were double that age, and during the next three years, when you had joined your regiment and only came down occasionally to us, you had become quite an imposing personage. That was my last impression of you. Now, you see, you don't look so old, or so big, or so imposing, as I have been picturing you to myself.'

'I dare say not,' he laughed. 'You see you have grown so much bigger and more imposing yourself.'

Suddenly Dorothy Hawtrey leapt to her seat again and touched her father on the arm.

'Father,' she said in a whisper, 'that man who has just turned from the crowd and is coming towards us is the one I was speaking to you about a few minutes ago, who had been staring at you with such an evil look.'

The man, who had the appearance of a shabby bookmaker, and who carried a satchel slung round his neck, and had the name of 'Marvel' on a broad ribbon round his hat, was now close to the carriage.

'Will you take the odds, Mr. Hawtrey,' he said in a loud voice, 'against any of the horses? I can give you six to one, bar one, against the field.'

'I do not bet,' Mr. Hawtrey said coldly, 'and by your looks it would have been better for you if you had never done so either.'

'I have had a bad run lately,' the man said, 'but I fancy it is going to turn. Will you lay a few pounds for the sake of old times?'

Mr. Hawtrey shook his head decidedly.

'I have come down rather in the world,' the man went on insolently, 'but I could pay the bet if I lost it as well as other debts. I have never forgotten how much I owe you.'

Hampton took a step forward towards the man, when a policeman stepped out from between their carriage and the next.

'Now, move on,' he said, 'or I will make you, sharp; you are not going to annoy people here, and if you don't go at once I will walk you off to the police tent.'

The man hesitated a moment, and then, muttering angrily, moved slowly away to the spot where he had left the dense line of spectators by the ropes.

'Who is he, father?' Dorothy Hawtrey asked; 'does he really know you?'

'Yes, my dear, he is the son of an old steward; he was a wild, reckless young scamp, and when his father died, shortly after I came into the property, I naturally refused to appoint him to the position. He used some very strong language at the time, and threatened me with all sorts of evils. I have met him once or twice since, and he never loses an opportunity of showing that he has not forgiven me; but never mind him now, here come the horses for their preliminary canter.'

Captain Hampton and his friend remained by the carriage until the race was over. The former had been introduced by Dorothy to the other three occupants of the carriage—Lady Linkstone, her daughter Mary, and Miss Nora Cranfield.

As soon as it was over the crowd broke up, the shouts of the men with the cocoanuts and Aunt Sallys rose loudly, and grooms began to lead up the horses to many of the carriages.

'We are going to make a start at once, Ned,' Mr. Hawtrey said; 'I cannot offer you a seat back to town, but if you have no engagement I hope that you will dine with us. Will you come too, Mr. Danvers?'

Danvers was disengaged, and he and Edward Hampton accepted the invitation at once. Ned's father had owned an estate adjoining that of the Hawtreys' in Lincolnshire, and the families had been neighbours for many years. Ned, who was the youngest of three sons had been almost as much at the Hawtreys' as at his own home, as Mr. Hawtrey had a nephew living with him who was just about the lad's age, and during the holidays the two boys were always together. They had entered the army just at the same time, but James Hawtrey had, a few months after he went out to India, died of fever.

'Who was the man who came up and spoke to them five minutes before the race started?' he asked Danvers as they strolled away together.

'There were two or three of them.'

'I mean the man who said it was too bad, Dorothy not coming down on his drag.'

'That is Lord Halliburn; he is very attentive there, and the general opinion is that it will be a match.'

'He didn't look as if he had much in him,' Hampton said, after a pause.

'He has a title and a very big rent roll, and has, therefore, no great occasion for brains; but in point of fact he is really clever. He is Under-Secretary for the Colonies, and is regarded as a rising young peer. He is not a bad fellow at all, I believe; keeps a few racers but does not bet, and has no vices as far as I have ever heard. That is his drag; he drives a first-rate team.'

'Well, I hope he is a good fellow,' Captain Hampton said shortly. 'You see I never had a sister of my own. That little one and I were quite chums, and I used to look upon her almost in the light of a small sister, and I should not like to think of her marrying anyone who would not make her happy.'

'I should think she has as fair a chance with Halliburn as with most men,' Danvers said. 'I know a man who was at Christ Church with him. He said that he was rather a prig—but that a fellow could hardly help being, brought up as he had been—but that, as a whole, he was one of the most popular men of his set. Now we may as well be walking for the station—that is, if you have had enough of it.'

'I am quite ready to go. After all, an English racecourse makes but a dull show by the side of an Indian one. The horses are better, and, of course, there is no comparison between the turnouts and the dresses of the women, though they manage to make a brave show at the principal stations; but as far as the general appearance of the crowd goes, you are not in it here. The natives in their gay dresses and turbans give a wonderfully light and gay appearance to the course, and though, possibly, among quite the lower class they may not all be estimable characters, at least they do not look such a pack of unmitigated ruffians as the hangers-on of an English racecourse. That was a nice specimen who attacked Hawtrey.'

'Yes, the fellow had a thoroughly bad face, and would be capable, I should say, of any roguery. It is not the sort of face I should expect to see in the dock on a charge of murder or robbery with violence, but I should put him down as an astute rogue, a crafty scoundrel, who would swindle an old woman out of her savings, rob servant girls or lads from the country by means of specious