"She is lovely in my eyes; and I believe she is generally considered a pretty girl."
"Who is she?"
"A lady. I can tell you no more yet awhile. Hark! there is the General's voice. I had better go. Stay, there is something you once gave me. You told me to wear it till"
"Till you were tired of me. Yes, I remember," she said impatiently.
"Till the tie was broken between us, in somewise," he answered, taking out his watch.
There was about three inches of slender Trichinopoly chain on the swivel of the watch, and on the chain hung an old-fashioned hoop-ring of old Brazilian diamonds. The ring had belonged to Lord Carlavarock's grandmother, and had been Valeria's favourite jewel.
She snatched it from Bothwell's hand the moment he had taken it off the chain, and flung it with all her force into the nearest thicket of shrubs.
"So much for the token of worn-out love!" she said. "If one of the gardeners finds it, he will pawn it at Devonport, and spend the money in drink. A worthy end for such a souvenir. Good-bye, Mr. Grahame."
Bothwell bowed and left her; left her to crawl up to her bedroom like a wounded hind creeping to covert, and to fling herself face downwards on the floor, and lie there tearless, despairing, ready to invoke hell itself to help her in some kind of revenge, had she but believed in the devil. But Lady Valeria was an agnostic. She had not even Satan as a friend in the hour of trouble.
CHAPTER XI.
A FATAL LOVE.
Monsieur Drubarde and his visitor descended the ladder, and entered the police-officer's apartment, which consisted of two small rooms, the outer an office and salon combined, the inner a bedchamber, which Mr. Heathcote saw through the open door: a neat little bachelor's nest, with a velvet-curtained bedstead, and walls lined with portraits of every kind—engravings, lithographs, photographs.
The salon was decorated with the same style of art, diversified by engravings from newspapers, all representing notorious crimes. "The Murder in the Rue de la Paix," "Germinie Latouche stabbed in the kitchen of the Red Cross Restaurant by her lover, Gilles Perdie;" "The Arrest of Victor Larennes for the great forgeries on the Bank of France;" "The Escape
