And he smiled grimly.
"The thought of the meadow and the river has set me thinking. I'll go back to the 'Rookery.'"
Lord Charles turned without a word, and they went back.
The tables were still occupied, and the entrance of the two men was noticed and greeted with a word here and there. Lord Charles dropped on to a chair and called for some coffee—a great deal of coffee was drank at the "Rookery"—but Leycester wandered about from table to table.
Presently he paused beside some men who were playing baccarat.
They had been playing since midnight, and piles of notes, and gold, and I O U's told pretty plainly of the size of the stakes.
Leycester stood leaning on the back of a chair, absently watching the play, but his thoughts were wandering back to the meadows of Wyndward, and he stood once more beside the weir stream, with the lovely face upon his breast.
But suddenly a movement of one of the players opposite him attracted his attention, and he came back to the present with a start.
A young fellow—a mere boy—the heir to a marquisate, Lord Bellamy—the reader will not have forgotten him—had dropped suddenly across the table, his outstretched hands still clutching the cards. There was an instant stir, the men started to their feet, the servants crowded up; all stood aghast.