"Yes, mamma, I have such a hope. Listen to me, you and Lora, and I will help you in your trouble, and you shall help me to complete my revenge."
[CHAPTER VIII.]
Some three or four weeks after Mrs. St. John's visit to the country, Howard Templeton was sitting in his club one day, smoking and reading, after a most luxurious lunch.
The young fellow looked very comfortable as he leaned back in his cushioned chair, the blue smoke curling in airy rings over his curly, blonde head, a look of lazy contentment in his handsome blue eyes.
He was somewhat of a Sybarite in his tastes, this handsome young fellow, over whose head twenty-five happy years had rolled serenely, without a shadow to mar their brightness save that unfortunate love affair two years before.
Howard was, emphatically, one of the "gilded youth" of his day. He "toiled not, neither did he spin." He had been cradled in luxury's silken lap all his life long.
Sorrow had passed him tenderly by as one exempt from the common ills of life.
He was so accustomed to his good luck that he seldom gave a thought to it. It simply seemed to him that he would go on that way forever.
Yet, to-day, for a wonder, he had been a little thoughtfully reviewing the events of the past six months.