.

MISS ARMYTAGE'S PEARLS.
Lady O'Moy and Miss Armytage drove alone together into Lisbon.

The adjutant, still occupied, would follow as soon as he possibly could, whilst Captain Tremayne would go on directly from the lodgings which he shared in Alcantara with Major Carruthers--also of the adjutant's staff--whither he had ridden to dress some twenty minutes earlier.
"Are you ill, Una ?" had been Sylvia's concerned greeting of her cousin when she came within the range of the carriage lamps.

"You are pale as a ghost." To this her ladyship had replied mechanically that a slight headache troubled her.
But now that they sat side by side in the well upholstered carriage Miss Armytage became aware that her companion was trembling.
"Una, dear, whatever is the matter ?" Had it not been for the dominant fear that the shedding of tears would render her countenance unsightly, Lady O'Moy would have yielded to her feelings and wept.

Heroically in the cause of her own flawless beauty she conquered the almost overmastering inclination.
"I--I have been so troubled about Richard," she faltered.