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Rh, but I must plead my steward's duties as a claim on your mercy. May I hope for the honour of a dance?"

Elsie's heart throbbed so violently that she instinctively put the hand which her bouquet shielded against her side. She dared not look at him. The thought of the wild scene of the night before maddened her almost into fury. What right had he? how dared he think that he could trifle with her so?

"I am sorry," she said, and her words fell like drops of steel. "But I am engaged for every dance."

Blake said nothing. He only bowed, and Lord Waveryng put his arm round Elsie, and steered her into the dance.

"I can see," he said when they paused presently, "that Mr. Blake is not quite in your good books. I wonder how he has offended you."

"Oh, no," said Elsie, trying to speak calmly, "he has not offended me, but of course at this time in the evening I have no dances left."

"I would give a good deal," said Lord Waveryng, "for the cheek to ask that man whether he is Morres Blake come to life again. I think I shall do it by-and-bye."

"Who is Morres Blake?" asked Elsie.

"Lord Coola's brother, a fellow that fell over a cliff, and was carried out to sea and drowned; at least, so they said. But you see somebody might have picked him up, and he might not have been drowned; and what gives the theory a spark of probability is that Blake would have been had up to a certainty on a charge of inciting his regiment to Fenianism if he had not got killed at the nick of time for his family, and for his own reputation, we won't say his life, since if he was drowned, he lost that anyhow."

"Ah!" Elsie drew a deep breath. Things seemed to suddenly become clear to her.

"It must be ten or twelve years ago," Lord Waveryng went on. "I met Blake, the Morres Blake you know, twice at Castle Coola, and I don't often forget a face. In fact I've got an astonishing memory for faces, Miss Valliant. I ought to have been a Royalty."