gasps, lips quivering, brows closely knitted,
keeping up his head gallantly, but keeping it by
dint of sheer pluck and nervous energy. Saxon
next—a little flushed, but light of foot and
self-possessed as ever, as fresh apparently as
when he first started, and capable of running
on at the same steady rate for any number of
miles that might be set before him.  Vaughan
last—coming up very heavily, and full twenty
yards in the rear.

"Good Heavens!" cried Miss Hatherton,
half beside herself with impatience, "how can
he let Lord Castletowers keep the lead?"

"Because he cannot help it," said Olimpia
scornfully triumphant.  She had forgotten that
Saxon was her chosen knight, and all her
sympathies were with the Earl.

"Absurd! he has but to put out a little more
speed and he must win.  The Earl is nearly . . .
There! there!  Did I not tell you so?  Bravo,
Antinous!"

They passed the platform; and as they
passed, Saxon looked up with an ardent smile,
waved his hand to Olimpia, threw up his head
like a young war-horse, bounded forward as if
the wings were really on his feet, and passed
the Earl as easily as a man on horseback passes
a man on foot.  Till this moment the race,
earnest enough for the rest, had been mere
play to him.  Till this moment he had not
attempted to put out his speed, or show what
he could do. Now he flashed past the
astonished spectators like a meteor.  His feet
seemed scarcely to touch the turf, his body
seemed as if borne upon the air.  A great roar
of admiration burst from the crowd; and in the
midst of the roar, before Lord Castletowers had
got over a third of the distance, Saxon had
made the sixth round, and passed the winning-
post by several feet.

"Won by a hundred and eighty yards," said
Pulteney, timekeeper.  "Last round thirty-
one seconds and a half.  By Jove, Sir, though
I've seen it myself, I can scarcely believe it!"

Saxon laughed joyously.

"I could have done it almost as easily," said
he, "if it had been up-hill all the way."

And what did Olimpia Colonna say to her
chosen knight, when he received the prize from
her hands, only to lay it the next moment at
her feet?  Doubtless she remembered in good
time that Saxon was her chosen knight, and
forgot how disloyally her sympathies had
strayed from him in the race. Doubtless her
greeting had in it something poisonously sweet,
subtle, intoxicating — to judge, at least, by the
light in his face, as he bowed and turned away.

CHAPTER XXXVI.    ELTON HOUSE, KENSINGTON.

MR. ABEL KECKWITCH, with William
Trefalden's private address in his pocket-book, felt
much as Adrian the Fourth may have felt with
haughty Barbarossa prostrate at his feet.  He
took it for granted that there was some dark
secret at the bottom of his master's daily life.
He knew quite well that a practical man like
William Trefalden would never take the trouble
to surround himself with mystery unless he had
something to hide, and to that something Abel
Keckwitch believed he now possessed the key.
It never occurred to him that William Trefalden
might possibly object to let such loquacious
stones as copying clerks prate of his
whereabouts, for other than criminal reasons. If
such an idea had been suggested to him, he
would have laughed it to scorn. So, to do him
justice, would Mr. Kidd. Both the detective
and the lawyer's clerk were too familiar with
the dark side of human nature to believe for a
moment that systematic mystery meant
anything less than undiscovered crime.

So Abel Keckwitch took his master's address
home with him, fairly written out in Mr.
Nicodemus Kidd's clear business hand, and exulted
therein. He was in no haste to act upon the
information folded up in that little slip of paper.
It was not in his nature to be in haste about
anything, least of all about so sweet a dish as
revenge.  It must be prepared slowly, tasted a
morsel at a time, and made to last as long as
possible. Above all, it must be carefully
considered beforehand from every point of view,
and be spoiled by no blunder at starting.  So
he copied the address into his common-place
book, committed it to memory, pondered over
it, gloated over it, and fed his imagination on
it for days before he proceeded to take any
fresh steps in the matter.

"ELTON HOUSE, KENSINGTON."

Such was the address given to him by Mr.
Nicodemus Kidd. "Elton House, Kensington;"
not a word more—not a word less.  It was an
address that told nothing—suggested nothing.
"Elton Villa" would have bespoken a neat,
stuccoed anachronism in the Græco-Gothic style;
"Elton Lodge," a prim modern residence, with
gardens, gates, and a carriage-drive; "Elton
Cottage," an unassuming little place, shrinking
back from the high road, in a screen of lilacs
and laburnums; but "Elton House"
represented none of these to the mind's eye. "Elton
House" might be ancient or modern, large or
small, a cockney palace, or a relic of the old
court days.  There was nothing in its name to
assist conjecture in any way.  Thus, again, the
very suburb was perplexing.  Of all districts
round about London, there is none so diverse
in its characteristics as Kensington —none so
old in part, so new in part; so stately here, so
squalid there; so of the country countrified in
one direction, so of the town towny in another.
Elton House might partake of any of these
conditions for aught that one could gather from
its name.

In short, Mr. Abel Keckwitch turned the
address over in his mind much as some people
turn their letters over, stimulating their
curiosity instead of gratifying it, and spelling out
the motto on the seal, instead of breaking it.

At length he resolved to go over to Kensington
and reconnoitre the ground.  Having come
to this determination one Saturday afternoon