“Dear me, dear me!” he murmured, as he held it up. “How sorry he will be, how——” He stopped suddenly, and his eyes seemed riveted to the ring; then, as he became aware of Lady Grace’s fixed gaze, the benevolent smile returned to his face. “Actually lost it a few minutes after she had given it to him! Now, some superstitious persons would call that a bad omen. Are you superstitious, dear Lady Grace?”
“Give it to me; let me throw it——” she said, with malignant intensity.
He held it out of her reach, surveying her with smiling scrutiny.
“No, really you must not. Poor Cecil——” He stopped suddenly, and the expression of his face changed. His quick ears had caught the sound of a horse’s hoofs.
Touching her arm, he signed to her to follow him, and slid back behind the trees. She followed him, and, looking over her shoulder, saw Lord Cecil galloping toward them.
He cleared the hedge, and, dropping from the horse, walked quickly to the spot where they had stood, and commenced to search in the grass with anxious eagerness. He went down on his knees, and examined every inch of the spot where Doris and he had sat, groped along the bank where they had stood, and hunted every likely spot.
They could see his anxious face, hear his half-muttered ejaculations of disappointment, and Spenser Churchill, with the ring in his hand, smiled sweetly.
CHAPTER XII.
TO WED AN ACTRESS.
The ring was nowhere to be seen! Full of pain and remorse, Lord Cecil was obliged to admit to himself that it was gone beyond recovery; he might search for a week, a month, and not find it, for it might have dropped off his finger and fallen at any spot between the tree and the brook.