off debts nobody knew he had contracted. The worst is, he glides into
these difficulties unwittingly, led and swayed by others. We don't say
Elster's sin, or Elster's crimes; we say Elster's folly. I don't believe
Val ever in his life did a bad thing of deliberate intention. Designing
people get hold of him--fast fellows who are going headlong down-hill
themselves--and Val, unable to say 'No,' is drawn here and drawn there,
and tumbles with them into a quagmire, and perhaps has to pay his
friends' costs, as well as his own, before he can get out of it. Do you
believe in luck, Maude?"

"In luck?" answered Maude, raising her eyes at the abrupt question. "I
don't know."

"I believe in it. I believe that some are born under a lucky star, and
others under an unlucky one. Val is one of the latter. He is always
unlucky. Set him up, and down he comes again. I don't think I ever knew
Val lucky in my life. Look at his nearly blowing his arm off that time in
Scotland! You will laugh at me, I dare say; but a thought crosses me at
odd moments that his ill-luck will prevail still, in the matter of Miss
Ashton. Not if I can help it, however; I'll do my best, for Anne's sake."

"You seem to think very much of her yourself," cried Lady Maude, her
cheeks crimsoning with an angry flush.

"I do--as Val's future wife. I love Anne Ashton better than any one
else in the world. We all loved her. So would you if you knew her. In
my mother's last illness Anne was a greater comfort to her than Laura."

"Should you ever think of a wife on your own score, she may not like this
warm praise of Miss Anne Ashton," said Lady Maude, assiduously drawing,