Noblesse oblige. I belong to his order—and to a family older by centuries than his. If there was a favour conferred to-day at Musselburgh House, it was not on my shoulders that it fell."

He spoke haughtily, and yet without anger; and there was a ring of sincerity in his tones that could not be mistaken. The girl sate silent and abashed.

"No," said he, in the same proud fashion; "during all my troubles, and they have been more numerous than you know or need ever know, I have never cowered, or whimpered, or abased myself before any living being. I have held my head up. My conscience is clear towards all men. 'Stand fast, Craig-Royston!' it has been with me—and shall be!"

He went to the window and shut it.

"Come, light the gas, Maisrie; and let us talk about something else. What I say is this, that if anyone, recognising the injustice that I and mine have suffered, should feel it due to himself, due to humanity, to make some little reparation, why, that is as between man and man—that ought to be considered his privilege; and I take no shame. I ask for no compassion. The years that I can hope for now must be few; but they shall be as those that have gone before. I abase myself before no one. I hold my head erect. I look the world in the face; and ask which of us has the greater cause to complain of the other. 'Stand fast, Craig-Royston!'—that has been my motto; and so, thank God, it shall be to the end!"

Maisrie lit the gas, and attended to her grandfather's other wants—in a mechanical sort of way. But she did not take up the violin again. There was a strangely absent look on the pale and beautiful and pensive face.

CHAPTER II.

NEIGHBOURS.

The young man whom Lord Musselburgh had hailed came into the middle of the room. He was a handsome and well-made young fellow of about three or four-and-twenty, with finely-cut and intelligent features, and clear grey eyes that had a curiously straightforward and uncompromising look in them, albeit his manner was modest enough. At the present moment, however, he seemed somewhat perturbed.

"Who were those two?" he said, quickly.

"Didn't you listen while the old gentleman was declaiming away?" Lord Musselburgh made answer. "An enthusiastic Scot, if ever there was one! I suppose you never heard of the great Bethune lawsuit?"

"But the other—the girl?"

"His granddaughter, I think he said."

"She is the most beautiful human creature I ever beheld!" the young man exclaimed, rather breathlessly.

His friend looked at him—and laughed.

"That's not like you, Vin. Take care. The Hope of the Liberal Party enmeshed at four-and-twenty—that wouldn't do! Pretty—oh, yes, she was pretty enough, but shy: I hardly saw anything of her. I dare say her pretty face will have to be her fortune; I suspect the poor old gentleman is not overburdened with worldly possessions. He has his name, however; he seems proud enough of that; and I shouldn't wonder if it had made friends for him abroad. They seem to have travelled a good deal."

While he was speaking his companion had mechanically lifted from the table the card which old George Bethune had sent up. The address in Mayfair was pencilled on it. And mechanically the young man laid down the card again.

"Well, come along, Vin—let's get to Victoria."

"No, if you don't mind, Musselburgh," said the other, with downcast eyes, and something of embarrassment, "I would rather—not go down to the Bungalow to-night. Some other time—it is so good of you to be always asking me down——"

"My dear fellow," the young nobleman said, looking at his friend curiously, "what is the matter with you? Are you in a dream? Are you asleep? Haven't I told you that —— is coming down by a late train to-night; and isn't all the world envying you that the great man should make such a protégé and favourite of you? Indeed you must come down; you can't afford to lose such a chance. We will sit up for him; and you'll talk to him during supper; and you'll listen to him for hours after if he is in the humour for monologues. Then to-morrow morning you'll take him away bird's-nesting—he is as eager for any new diversion as a school-boy; and you'll have him all to yourself; and one of these days, before you know where you are, he'll hand you a Junior Lordship. Or is it the Under-Secretaryship at the Home Office you're waiting for? You know, we're all anxious to see how the new experiment will come off. The young man unspoiled by Oxford or Cambridge—untainted by landlord sentiment—trained for public life on first principles: one wants to see how all this will work in practice. And we never dictate—oh, no, we never dictate to the constituencies; but when the public notice from time to time in the newspapers that Mr. Vincent Harris was included in ——'s dinner-party on the previous evening, then they think; and perhaps they wonder when that lucky young gentleman is going to take his seat in the House of Commons. So really, my dear Vin, you can't afford to throw away this chance of having —— all to yourself. I suppose he quite understands that you are not infected with any of your father's Socialistic theories? Of course it's all very well for an enormously rich man like your father to play with Communism—it must be an exciting sort of amusement—like stroking a tiger's tail, and wondering what will happen in consequence; but you must keep clear of that kind of thing, my boy. Now, come along——"

"Oh, thank you, Musselburgh," the young man said, in the same embarrassed fashion, "but if you'll excuse me—I'd rather stay in town to-night."

"Oh, very well," the other said, good-naturedly, "I shall be up in a day or two again. By the way, the Four-in-Hand Club turns out on Saturday. Shall I give you a lift—and we'll go down to Hurlingham for the polo? Mrs. Ellison is coming."

"Oh, thanks—awfully good of you—I shall be delighted," the young man murmured; and a few seconds thereafter the two friends had separated, Lord Musselburgh driving off in a hansom to Victoria-station.

This young Vincent Harris who now walked away along Piccadilly towards Hyde Park was in a sort of waking trance. He saw nothing of the people passing by him, nor of the carriages, nor of the crowd assembled at the corner of the Row, expecting the Princess. He saw a pale and pathetic face, a dimly-outlined figure standing by a table, a chastened splendour of girlish hair, an attitude of meekness and diffidence. Once only had he caught a glimpse of the beautiful, clear, blue-grey eyes—when she came in at the door, looking startled almost; but surely a man is not stricken blind and dumb by a single glance from a girl's wondering or enquiring eyes? Love at first sight?—he would have dismissed the suggestion with anger, as an impertinence, a profanation. It was not love at all: it was a strange kind of interest and sympathy she had inspired—compassionate almost, and yet more reverent than pitiful. There appeared to be some mysterious and subtle appeal in her very youth: why should one so young be so solitary, so timid, sheltering herself, as it were, from the common gaze? Why that touch of pathos about