CHAPTER XXVII.
Our chain on silence clanks.
Time leers between, above his twiddling thumbs.
-- GEORGE MEREDITH.
Lord Lossiemouth had come into his kingdom.

He was rich, but not vulgarly so.

He had a great position, and what his artistic nature valued even more, the possession of one of the most beautiful places in England.

The Lossiemouth pictures and heirlooms, the historic house with its wonderful gardens--all these were his.
He had at first been quite dazed by the magnitude of his good fortune.
When it came to him it found him somewhat sore and angry at a recent rebuff which had wounded his vanity not a little.

But the excitement of his great change of fortune soon healed what little smart remained.
A few months before he succeeded, he had fallen in love, not for the first time by many times, with a woman who seemed to meet his requirements.