she said, laughingly.

"I was mistaken--cruelly so--weakly so--happily so," he replied. "Now
you will be generous and spare me."

He did not see the bitter smile with which she turned away, nor the
pallor that crept even to her lips. Once again in his life Lord Arleigh
was completely deceived.

A week afterward he received "a note in Philippa's handwriting it said,
simply:

"Dear Norman: You were good enough to plead the duke's cause. When
you meet him next, ask him if he has anything to tell you.

Philippa L'Estrange."

What the Duke of Hazlewood had to tell was that Miss L'Estrange had
promised to be his wife, and that the marriage was to take place in
August. He prayed Lord Arleigh to be present as his "best man" on the
occasion.

On the same evening Lady Peters and Miss L'Estrange sat in the
drawing-room at Verdun House, alone. Philippa had been very restless.
She had been walking to and fro; she had opened her piano and closed it;
she had taken up volume after volume and laid it down again, when
suddenly her eyes fell on a book prettily bound in crimson and gold,
which Lady Peters had been reading.

"What book is that?" she asked, suddenly.