"Put your fifty-eight pounds in your pocket against your wedding-day, and--good luck to you.

I'll take the case for nothing.

Now then, what is it?
What the dickens did you mean just now when you spoke about 'the lion's change' and 'the lion's smile'?
What lion--Nero?
Here, sit down and tell me all about it." "There is little enough to tell, Heaven knows," said young Scarmelli, with a sigh, accepting the invitation after he had gratefully wrung Cleek's hand, and his fiancee, with a burst of happy tears, had caught it up as it slipped from his and had covered it with thankful kisses.
"That, Mr.Cleek, is where the greatest difficulty lies--there is so little to explain that has any bearing upon the matter at all.

It is only that the lion--Nero, that is, the chevalier's special pride and special pet--seems to have undergone some great and inexplicable change, as though he is at times under some evil spell, which lasts but a moment and yet makes that moment a tragical one.

It began, no one knows why nor how, two weeks ago, when, without hint or warning, he killed the person he loved best in all the world--the chevalier's eldest son.