.

THE LION.
The game was played and lost.

All realized it, and none so keenly as Hortensia, who found it in her gentle heart to pity the woman who had never shown her a kindness.
She set a hand upon her lover's arm.

"What will you do, Justin ?" she inquired in tones that seemed to plead for mercy for those others; for she had not paused to think--as another might have thought--that there was no mercy he could show them.
Rotherby and his mother stood hand in hand; it was the woman who had clutched at her son for comfort and support in this bitter hour of retribution, this hour of the recoil upon themselves of all the evil they had plotted.
Mr.Caryll considered them a moment, his face a mask, his mind entirely detached.

They interested him profoundly.