we have found gilbert lloyd the centre of an amused circle at carabas house. let us see what has been his career since he parted with his wife at the george inn at brighton.

he was free! that was his first thought when he began to ponder over the probable results of the step he had taken,--free to come and go as he liked, to do as he listed, without the chance of incurring black looks or reproaches. not that he had had either from gertrude for a very long time. when her faith in her husband was first shattered; when she first began to perceive that the man whom in her girlish fancy she had regarded as a hero of romance--a creature bright, glorious, and rare--was formed of very ordinary clay, gertrude was vexed and annoyed by the discovery. she was young, too, and had a young woman's belief in the efficacy of tears and sulks; so that when gilbert stayed out late, or brought home companions to whom she objected, or went away on business tours for several days together, gertrude at first met him with sharp reproaches, dissolving into passionate fits of weeping, or varied with sufficiently feeble attempts at dignity. but gilbert laughed these last to scorn, and either took no notice of the reproaches, or with an oath bade them cease. and then, the glamour having utterly died out, and the selfishness and brutality of her husband being fully known to her, gertrude's manner had entirely changed. no sighs were ever heard by gilbert lloyd, no red eyelids, no cheeks swollen by traces of recent tears were ever seen by him. if the cold cynical expression on his wife's face had hot been sufficient, the bitter mocking tones of her voice never failed to tell him of the contempt she felt for him. that she was no longer his dupe; that she bitterly despised herself for ever having been fooled by him; that she had gauged the depth of his knavery and the shallowness of his pretensions,--all this was recognisable in her every look, in her every word. no brutality on her husband's part--and his brutality sometimes found other vent than language--no intermittent fits of softness towards her such as would occasionally come over him, had the smallest effect on her face or on her voice. she bore his blows silently, his caresses shudderingly, and when they were over she looked up at him with the cold cynical face, and replied to him with the bitter mocking voice.

gilbert lloyd's friends--by which expression is meant the men of the set in which he regularly lived--saw little of mrs. lloyd, who was popularly supposed by them to be next to a nonentity, lloyd being a man who "always had his own way." and indeed, so far as those words were ordinarily understood, gilbert lloyd's acquaintances were right. for months and months his comings and goings, his long absences, his conduct while at home, had been uncommented upon by gertrude, save in the expression of her face and in the tone of her voice. but these, even at such rare intervals as he was subjected to them, were quite enough to goad a man of his temperament, by nature irritable, and rendered doubly petulant by the exciting life he led; and the knowledge that he was free from them for ever, came to him with immense relief. he was "on his own hook" now, and had the world before him as much as he had before he committed the ridiculous error of letting his passion get the better of his prudence, and so binding a burden on to his back. a burden! yes, she had been a burden--a useless helpless dead-weight--even when his fleeting passion for her began to wane, he had hopes that after all he had not done such a bad thing in marrying her. to a man who looked for his prey amongst the young and inexperienced, a pretty woman would always prove a useful assistant, and gilbert lloyd at one time thought of using his wife as a lure and a bait. but any hopes of this nature which he may have entertained were speedily uprooted. "right-thinking" gertrude lloyd certainly was not; of mental obliquity in the matter of distinguishing between good and evil, she had her full share; but she was as proud as lucifer, and her pride stepped in to her aid where better qualities might not have interfered. her natural quickness enabled her at once to see through her husband's designs, and she told him plainly and promptly that he must seek elsewhere for a confederate; nay more, when lloyd would have insisted on her presiding at his table, and making herself agreeable to his friends, her resistance, hitherto passive, became active; she threatened to make known some of his proceedings, which would have seriously compromised him in the eyes of persons with whom he wished to stand well, and neither entreaties nor commands could alter her resolution.

she had been a burden, and he was rid of her. the more he thought it over, the more he congratulated himself on the step which he had taken, and felt that he had the best of the arrangement just concluded. he had never loved anyone; and the caprice, for it was nothing more, which he had once felt for gertrude had long since died away. he was free now to pursue his own career, and he determined that his future should be brighter and more ambitious than he had hitherto hoped. now was his chance, and he would take advantage of it. heretofore he had lived almost entirely in the society of the ring-men--among them, but not of them--despising his associates, and using them merely as a means to an end. he had had more than enough of such companionship, and would shake it off for ever. not that gilbert lloyd intended quitting the turf and giving up his career as a betting-man. such a thought never occurred to him; he knew no other way by which he could so easily earn so much money, while its bohemianism, and even its chicanery, were by no means unpleasant ingredients to his fallen nature. all he wished was to take higher rank and live with a different section of the fraternity. there were betting-men and betting-men; and gilbert lloyd knew that his birth and education fitted him more for the society of the "swells" who looked languidly on from the tops of drags or moved quietly about the ring, than for the companionship of the professionals and welchers who drove what was literally a "roaring" trade outside the enclosure. there was, moreover, considerably more money to be made amongst the former than the latter. opportunity alone had been wanting; now he thought that had come, and gilbert lloyd determined on trying his luck and going for a great coup.

he had a hundred pounds in hand and a capital book for doncaster, so he made up his mind to leave the last to the manipulation of an intimate friend, who would watch the alterations in the market, and report them to him at baden, whither he started, at once. here he established himself in a pleasant little bedchamber in the bachelor's wing of the badischer hof, and proceeded to commence operations. the language, the appearance, the manners of the regular turfite he at once discarded, though an occasional hint dropped in conversation at the table d'h?te or in the kursaal, at both of which places he soon made many promiscuous acquaintances, conveyed a notion that the arcana of the ring were, or had been, sufficiently familiar to him. at the tables he played nightly, with varying fortune it was thought, though those who watched him closely averred that he was a considerable winner. his pecuniary success, however, affected him very slightly; he was glad, of course, to have been able to live luxuriously during a month, and to leave the place with more money than he took into it; but gilbert lloyd had done far better than merely winning a few hundred louis--he had made his coup.

he made it thus. staying at the badischer hof was the earl of ticehurst, a young english nobleman who had recently succeeded to his title and estate, and who, during the previous year, had caused a great deal of talk in london. he was a big, heavy-looking young man, with a huge jowl and a bull neck, coarse features, and small sunken eyes. at eton he had been principally noticeable for his cruelty to animals and his power of beer-drinking. at oxford these charming qualities were more freely developed, but whereas they had been called by their proper names by viscount etchingham's schoolfellows, they became known as "high spirits", to the college dons and the tuft-hunting tutors. it is probable, however, that even these long-suffering individuals would have had to take notice of his lordship's vivacious proceedings, had not his father died during his first year of residence; and on succeeding to the earldom of ticehurst, lord etchingham at once left the university and entered upon london life. this means different things to different people. to the nobleman just interred in the family vault at etchingham, in the presence of the premier and half the cabinet, it had signified the commencement of a brilliant political career. to his son, who had succeeded him, it meant the acquisition of a stud of racers, the sovereignty of the coffee-room at hummer's, the well-known sporting hotel, and the obsequious homage of some of the greatest scoundrels in london. the young man delighted in his position, and felt that he had really come into his kingdom. his name was in everyone's mouth, and people who scarcely could distinguish a racer from a towel-horse had heard of young lord ticehurst. the names of the horses which he owned were familiar in the mouths of the most general of the "general public," the amount of the bets which he won or lost was talked of in all classes of society, and by the "sporting world" he was looked upon as the great revivalist of those pastimes which are always described by the epithets "old" and "british." the fighting of mains of cocks, the drawing of badgers, the patronage of the rat-pit and the p.r. ("that glorious institution which, while it exists among us and is fostered by the genial support of such true corinthians as the e-- of t--, will prevent englishmen from having recourse to the dastardly use of the knife," as it was prettily described by snish, the fistic reporter of the life), the frequent fuddling of himself with ardent spirits, the constant attendance at night-saloons, and the never going home till morning--came into this category. elderly haymarket publicans and night-cabmen began to think that the glorious days of their youth had returned, when they witnessed or listened to the pranks of lord ticehurst; and in his first london season he had established a reputation for gentlemanly black-guardism and dare-devilry quite equal to any in the records of the bow-street police-court.

needless to say that with lord ticehurst's reputation gilbert lloyd was perfectly familiar, and that he had long and ardently desired the opportunity of making the acquaintance of that distinguished nobleman. to use his own language, he had "done all he knew" to carry out this desirable result; but in vain. there are hawks and hawks; and the birds of prey who hovered round lord ticehurst were far too clever and too hungry to allow any of the inferior kind to interfere with their spoil. not that gilbert lloyd was inferior in any sense, save that of mixing with an inferior class. lord ticehurst knew several men of lloyd's set--knew them sufficiently to speak to them in a manner varying from the de haut en bas style which he used to his valet to the vulgar familiarity with which he addressed his trainer; but it would not have suited gilbert lloyd to have been thrown in his way, and he had carefully avoided being presented or becoming known to lord ticehurst in an inferior position.

when gilbert arrived at the badischer hof, the first person he saw at the late table d'h?te was lord ticehurst; the second was plater dobbs, who acted as his lordship's henchman, mentor, and confidential upper servant. a stout short man, plater dobbs (his real name was george, and he was supposed once to have been a major in something, the nickname "plater" attaching to him from the quality of the racehorses he bred and backed), with a red face, the blood strangled into it by his tight bird's-eye choker, a moist eye, a pendulous under lip, a short gray whisker and stubbly moustache of the same colour, a bell-shaped curly-brimmed hat, and a wonderful vocabulary of oaths. plater dobbs was one of the old school in everything--one of the hard-drinking, hard-riding, hard-swearing, five-o'clock-in-the-morning old boys. a sportsman of the old school, with many recollections of pea-green hayne, and colonel berkeley, and the golden ball, and other lights of other days; a godless abandoned old profligate, illiterate and debauched, but with a certain old-fashioned knowledge of horse-flesh, an unlimited power of drinking without being harmed by what he drank, and a belief in and an adherence to "the code of honour" as then understood amongst gentlemen, as he had proved in person on various occasions at home and abroad. he had taken entire sway over lord ticehurst, bought racers with the young nobleman's money, and trained and ran them when he chose; went with him everywhere; and was alternately his mentor and his butt--acting in either capacity with the greatest equanimity.

now, above all other men in the world, lloyd hated plater dobbs. he had long envied the position which the "vulgar old cad," as he called him, had held in regard to lord ticehurst; and when he saw them together at baden, his rage was extreme, and a desire to supplant the elderly mentor at once rose in his breast. not that gilbert had any feeling that the counsels or the example given and shown to lord ticehurst by plater dobbs were wrong or immoral. all he felt about them was that they were rococo, old-fashioned, and behind the mark of the present day. the appointment of "confederate" to such a man as ticehurst, was one of the most splendid chances of a lifetime; and it had now fallen to the lot of a senile debauchee, who was neither doing good for himself nor obtaining credit for his pupil. if ticehurst were only in his hands, what would not gilbert lloyd do for him and for himself? ticehurst should be in his hands, but how? that was the problem which lloyd set himself to solve. that was the thought which haunted him day and night, which dulled his palate to m. rheinbolt's choicest plats, which even made him sometimes inattentive to the monotonous cry of the croupiers. to secure plater dobbs' position would be to land a greater stake than could be gained by the most unexpected fluke at trente et quarante. let him only hook ticehurst, and--rien ne va plus!

an ordinary sharper would have taken advantage of the frequent opportunities afforded by the table d'h?te and continental life generally, have spoken to lord ticehurst, and managed to secure a speaking acquaintanceship with him. but gilbert lloyd was not an ordinary sharper, and he saw clearly enough how little that course would tend to the end he had in view. he foresaw that plater dobbs' jealousy would be at once aroused; and that while the acquaintance with the bear was ripening, the bear-leader would have ample opportunity of vilifying his would-be rival. he put it to himself clearly that success was only to be gained by adventitious chance, and that chance came thus.

among the frequenters of the kursaal was a french gentleman of some thirty-five years of age, black-bearded, bright-eyed, and thin-waisted. andré de prailles was this gentleman's name, paris was his nation, and, to carry out the old rhyme, the degradation of england and her children was apparently his vocation. in private and in public he took every opportunity of saying unpleasant things about la perfide albion, and the traitors, native and domiciled, nourished by her. he had, for a frenchman, an extraordinary knowledge of english ways and manners of life--of life of a certain kind--which he amused himself and certain of his immediate friends by turning into the greatest ridicule. he played but little at the tables; indeed those who had watched him narrowly avowed that there was a certain understanding between him and the croupiers, who discouraged his attendance; but be this as it might, he frequented the promenade and the baths, lived in very fair style at the hotel victoria, and was "a feature" in the society of the place. m. de prailles' anglophobia had contented itself with disdainful glances at the representatives of the land which he detested, and with muttering with bated breath at all they said and did, until the arrival at baden of mdlle. de meronville, the celebrated ingénue of the vaudeville, with whom m. de prailles had an acquaintance, and for whom he professed an adoration.

mdlle. de meronville was a bright lithe little woman, with large black eyes, an olive complexion, and what lord ticehurst called a "fuzzy" head of jet-black hair; a pleasant good-natured little woman, fond of admiration and bonbons and good dinners and plenty of champagne; a little woman who played constantly at the tables, screaming with delight when she won, and using "strange oaths" when she lost--who smoked cigarettes on the promenade, and gesticulated wildly, and beat her companions with her parasol, and, in fact, behaved herself as unlike a british female as is possible to be imagined. perhaps it was the entire novelty of her style and conduct that gave her such a charm in the eyes of lord ticehurst, for charm she undoubtedly had. a devotion to the opposite sex had never hitherto been classed among the weaknesses of that amiable nobleman; but he was so completely overcome by the fascinations of eugénie de meronville, that no youth ever suffered more severely from "calf-love" than this reckless roisterer. he followed her about like her shadow; when in her company, after he had obtained an introduction to her, he would address to her the most flowery compliments in a curious mélange of tongues; and when absent from her he would sit and puff his cigar in moody silence, obstinately rejecting all efforts to withdraw him from his sentimental abstraction. plater dobbs regarded this new phase in his pupil's character with unspeakable horror, and was at his wits' end to know how to put a stop to it. he endeavoured to lead lord ticehurst into deeper play; but unless mdlle. de meronville were at the tables the young man would not go near them. he organised a little supper-party, at which were present two newly-arrived and most distinguished beauties: an english grass-widow whose husband was in india, and a russian lady, who regarded the fact of her liege lord's being ruined, and sinking from a position of affluence into that of a hotel-keeper, as quite enough to excuse her leaving him for ever. but ticehurst sulked through the banquet, and the ladies agreed in voting him bête and mauvais ton. the fact was that the man was madly in love with eugénie de meronville, and cared for nothing but her society.

what one does and where one goes and with whom one passes one's time is, of course, very easily known in a small coterie such as that assembled in the autumn at baden; and it is not to be wondered at that m. andré de prailles suffered many a bad quarter of an hour as he witnessed and heard of the amicable relations between his fair compatriot and one of the leading representatives of that nation which he detested. what added to m. de prailles' anger was the fact that whereas in paris, where he was known to be the friend of certain feuilletonistes with whom it was well for every actress to be on good terms, he had had cause for believing himself to be well thought of by the ingénue of the vaudeville, at baden, where no such inducement existed, he had been completely snubbed by eugénie, and treated with a hauteur which set his blood boiling in his veins. m. de prailles resented this after his own fashion. first, he addressed a passionate letter to his idol, reproaching her for her perfidy. to this he received a very short, and, to tell truth, a very ill-spelt, answer, in which the goddess replied that it was not his "afair," and that she would behave herself "come je voulai" wheresoever and with whomsoever she pleased. then he took to a more open course of defiance--following on the trail of mdlle. de meronville and lord ticehurst, standing behind them at the table, occupying adjacent seats to theirs in the kursaal or on the promenade, and enunciating, in by no means a hushed voice, his opinion on englishmen in general and lord ticehurst in particular. but lord ticehurst's comprehension of the french language was limited, his comprehension of the english language, as spoken by m. de prailles, was still more limited; and the strongest comment with which he favoured his opponent's ravings was a muttered inquiry as to what "that d--d little frenchman was jabbering about."

at last, one night, the long-threatened explosion took place. a sudden storm of wind and rain swept down from the black forest, and the curious vehicle attached to the h?tel d'angleterre was sent for to convey mdlle. de meronville from the kursaal to her rooms. the little actress had been playing with great ill-luck, and had been duly waited upon by lord ticehurst; but at the moment when the arrival of the droschky was notified to her, he had been called into another part of the room by plater dobbs, and only arrived in time to see her, mortified and angry, being conducted to the carriage on the arm of m. de prailles. rushing forward to make his excuses, lord ticehurst caught his foot in the train of mdlle. de meronville's gown, and, amid the suppressed burst of laughter from the bystanders, pulled her backwards and fell forward himself. he had scarcely recovered himself when the roll of the departing vehicle was in his ears, and m. de prailles was standing before him fuming.

"an accident? nothing of the sort! exprès! tout à fait exprès!"

a crowd gathered at the ominous words and at the tone of voice in which they were uttered: plater dobbs and gilbert lloyd foremost among the concurrents, the one flushed and excited, the other cool and collected; lord ticehurst, very pale, and with an odd twitching in the muscles of his month.

"it was no accident, that tumble!" shrieked m. de prailles. "it was a studied insult offered to a lady by a barbarian! exprès, entendes-vous, messieurs, exprès?"

then, seeing that his opponent stood motionless, the little frenchman drew himself on tiptoes, and hissed out,

"et il ne dit rien? décidément, milor, vous êtes un lache!" and he made a movement as though he would have struck lord ticehurst with his open hand.

but plater dobbs, who had been puffing and fuming and gasping for breath, caught the angry frenchman by the arm, and called out,

"holla, none of that! we'll produce our man when he's wanted. we don't want any rough-and-tumble here! ally, party, mossoo!"

"au diable, ivrogne!" was all the response which m. de prailles chose to make to this elegant appeal; but he turned to some of his compatriots, and said, "regardez donc la figure de ce milor là!" and in truth lord ticehurst was almost livid, and the chair against which he was leaning trembled in his grasp. at that moment gilbert lloyd stepped forward.

"there's no question of producing any man on this occasion, except a gensdarme," said he, addressing plater dobbs.

a hush fell on the little crowd--the englishmen silenced by what they heard, the foreigners by the effect which they saw the words had produced. only dobbs spoke, and he said, "what the devil do you mean?"

"what i say," replied lloyd; "it's impossible for lord ticehurst to fight this fellow," with a contemptuous wave of the hand at de prailles. "i've long thought i recognised him; now i'm sure of it. i don't know what he calls himself now, but he used to answer to the name of louis three years ago, when he was a billiard-marker at the rooms over the tennis-court, just out of the haymarket."

"tu mens, canaille!" screamed m. de prailles, rushing at him; but gilbert lloyd caught his adversary by the throat, and with every nerve in his lithe frame strung to its tightest pitch, shook him to and fro.

"drop that!" he said; "drop that, or by the lord i'll fling you out of the window. you know the height you'd have to fall!" and with one parting shake he threw the frenchman from him. "i'm glad my memory served me so well; it would have been impossible for your lordship to have gone out with such a fellow."

m. andré de prailles left baden very early the next morning: but the events of that night affected more than him. although he was not of a grateful or recognisant nature, lord ticehurst felt keenly the material assistance which gilbert lloyd afforded him at what in his inmost heart his lordship knew to have been a most critical and unpleasant time, and he showed at once that he appreciated this assistance at its proper value. he made immediate advances of friendship to gilbert, which advances gilbert received with sufficient nonchalance to cause them to be repeated with double ardour. at the same time he by no means declined the acquaintance which lord ticehurst offered him, and in the course of various colloquies contrived to indoctrinate his lordship with a notion of his extraordinary 'cuteness in things in general, and in matters pertaining to the turf and to society in particular. the world, as viewed through gilbert lloyd's glasses, had to lord ticehurst quite a different aspect from that under which he had hitherto seen it, and he raged against opportunities missed and stupid courses taken while under the tutelage of plater dobbs. to rid himself of that worthy's companionship and to instal gilbert lloyd in his place was a task which lord ticehurst set himself at once, and carried out with great speed and success. he found little opposition from the plater. that worldly-wise old person had seen how matters stood--"how the cat jumped," as he phrased it--from the first, and was perfectly prepared to receive his congé. nor, indeed, was he altogether displeased at the arrangement. his good qualities were few enough, but among them was the possession of personal pluck and courage, and a horror of anyone in whom these were lacking. "i always knew etchingham was a duffer, sir," he would say in after-days--"a pig-headed, obstinate, mean duffer--but i never thought he was a cur until that night. he was in a blue funk, i tell you--in a blue funk of a d--d little frenchman that he could have swallowed whole! i don't complain, sir. he hasn't behaved badly to me, and i hope he'll find he's done right in holding on to master lloyd. a devilish slippery customer that, sir. but him and me couldn't have been the same after i saw he funked that frenchman, and so perhaps it's better as it is." so major plater dobbs retired on an allowance of three hundred a year from his ex-pupil to the cheerful city of york, and this history knows him no more.

when gilbert lloyd returned to england in time to accompany his patron to doncaster, where they witnessed the shameful defeat of all lord ticehurst's horses, which had been trained under the dobbs' regime, he felt that he had made his coup; but he did not anticipate such success as fell to his lot. by an excellent system of tactics, the mainspring of which was to make himself sought instead of to seek, and to speak his mind unreservedly upon all points on which he was consulted, taking care never to interfere in cases where his opinion was not asked, he obtained a complete ascendency over the young man, who, after a very short time, made him overseer, not merely of his stable, but of his house, his establishment, and his estates. and excellently did lloyd perform the functions then allotted to him. he had a clear head for business, and a keen eye for "a good thing," and as a large portion of all lord ticehurst's luck and success was shared by his "confederate," it was not surprising that lloyd employed his time and brains in planning and achieving successes. not a little of his good fortune lloyd owed to keeping in with his former allies the ring-men, who were treated by him with a frank cordiality which stood him in excellent stead, and who were delighted to find that one of their own order, as they judged him, could climb to such a height without becoming stuck-up or spiteful. the old trainer, the jockeys, and all the dobbs' satellites were swept away as soon as gilbert lloyd came into power, and were so well replaced that lord ticehurst's stud, which had previously been the laughing-stock of tattersall's, now contained several animals of excellent repute, and one or two from which the greatest things were expected.

nor was the change less remarkable in lord ticehurst himself. of course his new mentor would have lacked the inclination, even if he had had the power, to withdraw his pupil from turf-life; but to a certain extent he made him understand the meaning and the value of the saying "noblesse oblige." it was understood that hence-forward lord ticehurst's horses were run "on the square," and that there was to be no more "pulling," or "roping," or any other chicanery. and after a good deal of patience and persuasion gilbert lloyd succeeded in indoctrinating his patron with the notion that it was scarcely worth while keeping up the reputation of being "british" with a small portion of the community at the expense of disgusting all the rest; that if one had no original taste in the matter of costume, and needs must copy someone else, there were styles not simpler perhaps, but at all events as becoming as those of the groom; and that all the literary homage of the life scarcely repaid a gentleman for having to associate with such blackguards as he met in his patronage of the prize-ring, the cock-pit, and the rat-hunt. the young man, who being young was impressionable, was brought to see the force of these various arguments; more easily, doubtless, because they were put to him in a remarkably skilful way, without dictation and without deference--simply as the suggestions of a man of the world to another worldling, the force of which he, from his worldly knowledge, would perfectly understand and appreciate. and so, within a year after submitting himself to gilbert lloyd's tutelage, lord ticehurst, who had been universally regarded as a "cub" and a "tiger," was admitted to be a doosid good fellow, and his friends laid all the improvement to gilbert lloyd.

amongst those friends, perhaps the warmest of lloyd's supporters was lord ticehurst's aunt, lady carabas. lady carabas had always delighted to have it thought that she was a femme incomprise; that while she was looked upon as the mere worldling, the mere butterfly of fashion, she had a soul--not the immortal part of her system which she took notice of once a week in st. barnabas's church, but such a soul as poets and metaphysical writers spell with a large s,--a soul for poetry, romance, love, and all those other things which are never heard of in polite neighbourhoods. the marquis of carabas was quite unaware of the existence of this portion of his wife's attributes, and if he had known of it, it is probable it would have made very little difference to him: it was nothing to eat, nothing to be shot at or angled for, at least with a gun or a rod, so had no interest for his lordship. but there was always someone sufficiently intimate with lady carabas to be intrusted with the secret of the existence of this soul, and to be permitted to share in its aspirations. lady carabas had married very early in life, and although she had two large and whiskered sons, she was yet a remarkably handsome woman; so handsome, so genial, and so winning, that there were few men who would not have been gratified by her notice. and here let it be said, that all her friendships--she had many, though never more than one at the same time--were perfectly platonic in their nature. she pined to be understood--she wanted nothing else, she said; but people remarked that those whom she allowed to understand her were always distinguished either by rank, good looks, or intellect. the immediate predecessor of gilbert lloyd in dominion over lady carabas' soul, was an italian singer with a straight nose, a curling brown beard, and a pair of luminous gray eyes; and he in his turn had supplanted a prince of the blood. gilbert lloyd was prime favourite now, and was treated accordingly by the "regulars" in beaumanoir-square. it was lady carabas' boast that she could be "all things to all men." thus while her soul had gushed with the regal romance of arthur and guinevere in its outpourings to the prince--an honest gentleman of limited intellect and conversation restricted to the utterance of an occasional "hum, haw, jove!"--it had burned with republican ardour in its conference with the exiled italian; and was now imbued with the spirit of ruff, bell, bailey, and other leading turf-guides, in its lighter dalliance with gilbert lloyd. and this kind of thing suited lloyd very well, and tended to secure his position with lord ticehurst.

at the time of gilbert lloyd's introduction to miles challoner at carabas house, that position was settled and secured. not merely was lord ticehurst, to all appearance, utterly dependent on his mentor for aid and advice in every action of his life, but lloyd's supremacy in the ticehurst household was recognised and acquiesced in by all friends and members of the family. it was so recognised, so apparently secure, and withal so pleasant, that lloyd had put aside any doubt of the possibility of its ever being done away with; and the first idea of such a catastrophe came to him as the old name, so long unheard, sounded once more in his ears, and as in the handsome man before him he recognised his elder brother. miles challoner, as we have seen, sought safety in flight. gilbert lloyd, the younger man, but by far the older worldling, soon recovered from his temporary disquietude, so far as his looks were concerned, and gazed after the vanishing figure of his brother with eyebrows uplifted in apparent wonderment at his gaucherie. but in the solitude of his chamber, before he went to bed that morning, he faced the subject manfully, and thought it out under all its various aspects.

would miles betray him? that was the chief point. the blood surged up in his pale face, and the beating of his heart was plainly audible to himself as he thought of that contingency, and foresaw the unalterable and immediate result. exposure! proved to have been living for years under an assumed name and in a false position--a slight ray of hope here. the real name and the real position were incomparably better than those he had assumed. had he not rather lost than gained by--dashed out at once? why did he hide his name and position? forced to. why? o, that story must never be given up, or he would be lost indeed. and then his thoughts digressed, and he found himself picturing in his memory that last night in the old house--that farewell of rowley court. good god! how he recollected it all!--the drive in the dogcart through the long lanes redolent of may; the puzzled face of the old coachman, who knew young master was going away, and yet could not make out why old master, and master miles, and the household had not turned out to wish him "god speed;" the last glimpse which, as he stood at the station-door, he caught of the dog-cart thridding its way homewards through the lanes, almost every inch of which he knew. would miles betray him? no, he thought not--at least wilfully and intentionally. if the miles of to-day had the same characteristics as he remembered in the boy, he had an amount of pride which would render it impossible for him to move in the matter. impossible! yes, because to move in it would be to announce to the world that he, the squire of rowley court, was the brother of mr. lloyd the turfite, the "confederate" of lord ticehurst, the--and gilbert cursed the pride which would make his brother look down upon him, even though to that pride he principally looked for his own safety. but might not miles unintentionally blunder and blurt out the secret? he had been hot-headed and violent of speech as a boy, and his conduct at carabas house on the introduction had proved that he had no command over his feelings. this was what it was to have to do with fools. and then gilbert lloyd recollected that, on the only other occasion in his life when the chance of compromising his future was in the hands of another person, it was his wife to whom the chance was allotted; and he remembered the perfect security which he felt in her sense and discretion. his wife! he had not thought of her for a very long time. he wondered where she was and what she was doing. hewho sang last night at wondered whether she had altered in personal appearance, whether anyone else had--pshaw! what the deuce did it matter to him? nevertheless, he angrily quickened the step with which he was pacing the room as the thought crossed his mind. o no, miles would not betray him! there were other reasons why he should not. did he not--perhaps it was a mistake after all his having broken with gertrude in that manner? she would have been in his way here and there, perhaps; but she was wonderfully accommodating, even in letting him have his own way so far as coming and going were concerned; and how shrewd and clear-headed she was! so good-looking, too! he found himself idly tracing her profile with his finger on the table in front of him. strange girl--what an odd light there was on her face that--that night when they parted! and harvey gore--o, good lord! what had started that vein of thought? that confounded meeting with miles had upset him entirely. harvey gore!--did gertrude suspect--she knew. he was certain, she knew, and that was what--it was for the best that he had got rid of her; for the best that he was on his own hook--only himself to consult and rely upon, and no one else with a chance of selling him. all women were unreliable, and interfered with business. by the way, what was that ticehurst was saying as they came away in the brougham about some woman who had sung in the early part of the evening, before he got to carabas house? ticehurst was wonderfully enthusiastic for him--such a face, such a figure, such a lovely voice! these raptures meant nothing serious, gilbert supposed; at all events he intended to take care that they should mean nothing serious. that affair of eugénie de meronville, when ticehurst's admiration very nearly brought him under an infuriated frenchman's fire, had been of infinite service, gilbert reflected with a grin, in cooling his lordship's love ardour, and indeed had kept him very much aloof from the sex. it was better so; if lord ticehurst married, more than half gilbert lloyd's influence would be gone, if indeed the turf were not abandoned, and the "confederate" chasséd; and any other arrangement in which a woman might be concerned would be equally unsatisfactory. fancy his having seen miles, and heard the old name too! how much did miles know? he turned on his heel as if--and yet the old man would never have told him. his pride would have prevented that; at all events nothing could be gained by keeping awake now. he had thought it out, and decided that, for several reasons, his brother would not betray him; and so gilbert lloyd turned into bed, and slept as peacefully and as easily as the darkest schemers often do, despite all the romancists say to the contrary.

next day he was walking through the park with his patron, on their way to tattersall's, when, just as they crossed the drive, a brougham dashed rapidly by them. lord ticehurst clutched his companion's arm, and said eagerly, "look, gilbert--quick! there she is." gilbert lloyd looked round, and said in a tone of irritation, "what? who?" "the girl who sang last night at carabas's. the stunner i told you of." "then i wish the stunner had gone some other way," said lloyd. "i didn't even have the satisfaction of seeing her; and i was just totting-up how we stood on the ascot cup, and you've startled all the figures out of my head."