And as he swung quickly along, feeling once more tired and depressed, the Englishman wondered more and more why Sylvia Bailey cared to stay in such a place as Lacville. It struck him as neither town nor country—more like an unfinished suburb than anything else, with almost every piece of spare land up for sale.

He walked on and on till at last he came to the edge of a great stretch of what looked like primeval woodland. This surely must be part of the famous Forest of Montmorency, which his guide-book mentioned as being the great attraction of Lacville? He wondered cynically whether Sylvia had ever been so far, and then he plunged into the wood, along one of the ordered alleys which to his English eyes looked so little forest-like, and yet which made walking there very pleasant.

Suddenly there fell on his ear the sound of horses trotting quickly. He looked round, and some hundred yards or so to his right, at a place where four roads met under high arching trees, he saw two riders, a man and a woman, pass by. They had checked their horses to a walk, and as their voices floated over to him, the woman's voice seemed extraordinarily, almost absurdly, familiar—in fact, he could have sworn it was Sylvia Bailey's voice.

Chester stopped in his walk and shrugged his shoulders impatiently. She must indeed be dwelling in his thoughts if he thus involuntarily evoked her presence where she could by no stretch of possibility be.

But that wandering echo brought Sylvia Bailey very near to Chester, and once more he recalled her as he had seen her sitting at the gambling table the night before.

In grotesque juxtaposition he remembered, together with that picture of Sylvia as he had seen her last night, the case of a respectable old lady, named Mrs. Meeks, the widow of a clergyman who had had a living in the vicinity of Market Dalling.

Not long after her husband's death this old lady—she had about three hundred a year, and Chester had charge of her money matters—went abroad for a few weeks to Mentone. Those few weeks had turned Mrs. Meeks into a confirmed gambler. She now lived entirely at Monte Carlo in one small room.

He could not help remembering now the kind of remarks that were made by the more prosperous inhabitants of Market Dalling, his fellow citizens, when they went off for a short holiday to the South, in January or February. They would see this poor lady, this Mrs. Meeks, wandering round the gaming tables, and the sight would amuse and shock them. Chester knew that one of the first things said to him after the return of such people would be, "Who d'you think I saw at Monte Carlo? Why, Mrs. Meeks, of course! It's enough to make her husband turn in his grave."

And now he told himself ruefully that it would be enough to make honest George Bailey turn in his grave could he see his pretty, sheltered Sylvia sitting in the Casino at Lacville, surrounded by the riffraff collected there last night, and actually taking an active part in the game as well as risking her money with business-like intentness.

He wondered if he could persuade Sylvia to leave Lacville soon. In any case he would himself stay on here three or four days—he had meant only to stay twenty-four hours, for he was on his way to join a friend whose Swiss holiday was limited. The sensible thing for Sylvia to do would be to go back to England.

* * * * *

Chester reached the Villa du Lac at half-past eleven and as he went out into the charming garden where he was told he would find Mrs. Bailey he told himself that Lacville was not without some innocent attractions. But Mrs. Bailey was not alone in this lovely garden. Sitting on the lawn by her was the Frenchman who had been with her when Chester had first caught sight of her at the Casino the night before.

The two were talking so earnestly that they only became aware of his approach when he was close to them, and though Chester was not a particularly observant man, he had an instant and most unpleasant impression that he had come too soon; that Sylvia was not glad to see him; and that the Frenchman was actually annoyed, even angered, by his sudden appearance.

"We might begin lunch a little earlier than twelve o'clock," said Sylvia, getting up. "They serve lunch from half-past eleven, do they not?" she turned to the Comte de Virieu.

"Yes, Madame, that is so," he said; and then he added, bowing, "And now perhaps I should say good-bye. I am going into Paris, as you know, early this afternoon, and then to Brittany. I shall be away two nights."

"You will remember me to your sister, to—to the Duchesse," faltered Sylvia.

Chester looked at her sharply. This Frenchman's sister? The Duchesse?—how very intimate Sylvia seemed to be with the fellow!

As the Count turned and sauntered back to the house she said rather breathlessly,

"The Comte de Virieu has been very kind to me, Bill. He took me into Paris to see his sister; she is the Duchesse d'Eglemont. You will remember that the Duc d'Eglemont won the Derby two years ago?"

And as he made no answer she went on, as if on the defensive.

"The Comte de Virieu has to go away to the funeral of his godmother. I am sorry, for I should have liked you to have become friends with him. He was at school in England—that is why he speaks English so well."

While they were enjoying the excellent luncheon prepared for them by M. Polperro, Chester was uncomfortably aware that the Count, sitting at his solitary meal at another table, could, should he care to do so, overhear every word the other two were saying.

But Paul de Virieu did not look across or talk as an Englishman would probably have done had he been on familiar terms with a fellow-guest in an hotel. Instead he devoted himself, in the intervals of the meal, to reading a paper. But now and again Chester, glancing across, could see the other man's eyes fixed on himself with a penetrating, thoughtful look. What did this Frenchman mean by staring at him like that?

As for Sylvia, she was obviously ill at ease. She talked quickly, rather disconnectedly, of the many things appertaining to her life at home, in Market Dalling, which she had in common with the English lawyer. She only touched on the delightful time she had had in Paris, and she said nothing of Lacville.

Long before the others had finished, Count Paul got up; before leaving the dining-room, he turned and bowed ceremoniously to Sylvia and her companion. With his disappearance it seemed to Chester that Sylvia at once became her natural, simple, eager, happy self. She talked less, she listened more, and at last Chester began to enjoy his holiday.

They went out again into the garden, and the wide lawn, with its shaded spaces of deep green, was a delicious place in which to spend a quiet, idle hour. They sat down and drank their coffee under one of the cedars of Lebanon.

"This is a very delightful, curious kind of hotel," he said at last. "And I confess that now I understand why you like Lacville. But I do wonder a little, Sylvia"—he looked at her gravely—"that you enjoy going to that Casino."

"You see, there's so very little else to do here!" she exclaimed, deprecatingly. "And then, after all, Bill, I don't see what harm there is in risking one's money if one can afford to do so!"

He shook his head at her—playfully, but seriously too. "Don't you?" he asked dryly.

"Why, there's Madame Wachner," said Sylvia suddenly, and Chester thought there was a little touch of relief in her voice.

"Madame Wachner?" And then the Englishman, gazing at the stout, squat figure which was waddling along the grass towards them, remembered.

This was the good lady who had been so kind to him the night before; nay, who had actually offered to give him a bed if the Pension Malfait had been closed.

"We 'ave lunched in the town," she said, partly addressing Chester, "and so I thought I would come and ask you, Madame Sylvia, whether you and your friend will come to tea at the Villa des Muguets to-day?" She fixed her bright little eyes on Sylvia's face.

Sylvia looked at Chester; she was smiling; he thought she would like him to accept.

"That is very kind of you," he said cordially.

Sylvia nodded her head gaily: "You are more than kind, dear Madame Wachner," she exclaimed. "We shall be delighted to come! I thought of taking Mr. Chester a drive through the Forest of Montmorency. Will it do if we are with you about five?"

"Yes," said Madame Wachner.

And then, to Chester's satisfaction, she turned and went away. "I cannot stay now," she said, "for l'Ami Fritz is waiting for me. 'E does not like to be kept waiting."

"What a nice woman!" said Chester heartily, "and how lucky you are, Sylvia, to have made her acquaintance in such a queer place as this. But I suppose you have got to know quite a number of people in the hotel?"

"Well, no—," she stopped abruptly. She certainly had come to know the Comte de Virieu, but he was the exception, not the rule.

"You see, Bill, Lacville is the sort of place where everyone thinks everyone else rather queer! I fancy some of the ladies here—they are mostly foreigners, Russians, and Germans—think it very odd that I should be by myself in such a place."

She spoke without thinking—in fact she uttered her thoughts aloud.

"Then you admit that it is rather a queer place for you to be staying in by yourself," he said slowly.

"No, I don't!" she protested eagerly. "But don't let's talk of disagreeable things—I'm going to take you such a splendid drive!"

* * * * *

Chester never forgot that first day of his at Lacville. It was by far the pleasantest day he spent there, and Sylvia Bailey, woman-like, managed entirely to conceal from him that she was not as pleased with their expedition as was her companion.

Thanks to M. Polperro's good offices, they managed to hire a really good motor; and once clear of the fantastic little houses and the waste ground which was all up for sale, how old-world and beautiful were the little hamlets, the remote stretches of woodland and the quiet country towns through which they sped!

On their way back, something said by Sylvia surprised and disturbed Chester very much. She had meant to conceal the fact that she was riding with Paul de Virieu each morning, but it is very difficult for one accustomed always to tell the truth to use deceit. And suddenly a careless word revealed to Chester that the horsewoman whose voice had sounded so oddly familiar to him in the Forest that morning had really been Sylvia herself!

He turned on her quickly: "Then do you ride every morning with this Frenchman?" he asked quietly.

"Almost every morning," she answered. "His sister lent me a horse and a riding habit. It was very kind of her," she raised her voice, and blushed deeply in the rushing wind.

Chester felt his mind suddenly fill with angry suspicion. Was it possible that this Comte de Virieu, this man of whom that nice Madame Wachner had spoken with such scorn as a confirmed gambler, was "making up" to Sylvia? It was a monstrous idea—but Chester, being a solicitor, knew only too well that in the matter of marriage the most monstrous and disastrous things are not only always possible but sometimes probable. Chester believed that all Frenchmen regard marriage as a matter of business. To such a man as this Count, Mrs. Bailey's fortune would be a godsend.

"Sylvia!" he exclaimed, in a low, stern voice.

He turned round and looked at her. She was staring straight before her; the colour had faded from her cheek; she looked pale and tired.

"Sylvia!" he repeated. "Listen to me, and—and don't be offended."

She glanced quickly at the man sitting by her side. His voice was charged with emotion, with anger.

"Don't be angry with me," he repeated. "If my suspicion, my fear, is unfounded, I beg your pardon with all my heart."

Sylvia got up and touched the driver on the shoulder. "Please slow down," she said in French, "we are going faster than I like."

Then she sank back in her seat. "Yes, Bill! What is it you wish to ask me? I couldn't hear you properly. We were going too fast."

"Is it possible, is it conceivable, that you are thinking of marrying this Frenchman?"

"No," said Sylvia, very quietly, "I am not thinking of marrying the Comte de Virieu. But he is my friend. I—I like and respect him. No, Bill, you need not fear that the Comte de Virieu will ever ask me to become his wife."

"But if he did?" asked Chester, hoarsely.

"You have no right to ask me such a question," she answered, passionately; and then, after a pause, she added, in a low voice: "But if he did, I should say no, Bill."

Her eyes were full of tears. As for Chester, he felt a variety of conflicting emotions, of which perhaps the strongest was a determination that if he could not get her no one else should do so. This—this damned French gambler had touched Sylvia's kind heart. Surely she couldn't care for a man she had only known a month, and such an affected, dandified fellow, too?

It was with relief that they both became aware a few moments later that they were on the outskirts of Lacville.

"Here is the Chalet des Muguets!" exclaimed Sylvia. "Isn't it a funny little place?"

The English lawyer stared at the bright pink building; with curiosity and amusement. It was indeed a funny little place, this brick-built bungalow, so fantastically and, to his British eyes, so ridiculously decorated with blue china lozenges, on which were painted giant lilies of the valley.

But he had not long to look, for as the car drew up before the white gate Madame Wachner's short, broad figure came hurrying down the path.

She opened the gate, and with boisterous heartiness welcomed Chester and Sylvia into the neglected garden.

Chester looked round him with an involuntary surprise. The Wachners' home was entirely unlike what he had expected to find it. He had thought to see one of those trim, neat little villas surrounded by gay, exquisitely tended little gardens which are the pride of the Parisian suburban dweller.

Madame Wachner caught his glance, and the thought crossed her mind uncomfortably that she had perhaps made a mistake, a serious mistake, in asking this priggish-looking Englishman to come to the Chalet des Muguets. He evidently did not like the look of the place.

"You wonder to see our garden so untidy," she exclaimed, regretfully. "Well, it is the owner's fault, not ours! You would not believe such a thing of a Frenchman, but 'e actually made us promise that we would do nothing—no, nothing at all, to 'is garden. 'E spoke of sending a man once a week to see after it, but no, 'e never did so."

"I have often wondered," broke in Sylvia frankly, "why you allowed your garden to get into such a state, but now, of course, I understand. What a very odd person your landlord must be, Madame Wachner! It might be such a delightful place if kept in good order. But I'm glad you have had the grass cut. I remember the first time I came here the grass was tremendously high, both in front and behind the house. Yesterday I saw that you have had it cut."

"Yes," said Madame Wachner, glancing at her, "yes, we had the grass cut a few days ago. Fritz insisted on it."

"If it had been as high as it was the first time I came here, I could never have made my way through it to the delightful little wood that lies over there, behind the chalet," went on Sylvia. "I don't think I told you that I went over there yesterday and waited a while, hoping that you would come back."

"You went into the wood!" echoed Madame Wachner in a startled tone. "You should not have done that," she shook her head gravely. "We are forbidden to go into the wood. We 'ave never gone into the wood."

L'Ami Fritz stood waiting for his visitors in the narrow doorway. He looked more good-tempered than usual, and as they walked in he chatted pleasantly to Chester.

"This way," he said, importantly. "Do not trouble to go into the salon, Madame! We shall have tea here, of course."

And Sylvia Bailey was amused, as well as rather touched, to see the preparations which had been made in the little dining-room for the entertainment of Bill Chester and of herself.

In the middle of the round table which had looked so bare yesterday was a bowl of white roses—roses that had never grown in the untidy garden outside. Two dessert dishes were heaped up with delicious cakes—the cakes for which French pastrycooks are justly famed. There was also a basin full of the Alpine strawberries which Sylvia loved, and of which she always ordered a goodly supply at the Villa du Lac. Madame Wachner had even remembered to provide the thick cream, which, to a foreign taste, spoils the delicate flavour of strawberries.

They were really very kind people, these Wachners!

Looking round the funny little dining-room, Sylvia could not help remembering how uncomfortable she had felt when sitting there alone the day before. It was hard now to believe that she should have had that queer, eerie feeling of discomfort and disquietude in such a commonplace, cheerful room. She told herself that there probably had been some little creature hidden there—some shy, wild thing, which maybe had crept in out of the wood.

"And now I will go and make the tea," said Madame Wachner pleasantly, and Sylvia gaily insisted on accompanying her hostess into the kitchen.

"We shall 'ave a nicer tea than that first time we made tea 'ere together," said Madame Wachner jovially.

The young Englishwoman shook her head, smiling.

"I had a very good time that afternoon!" she cried. "And I shall always feel grateful for your kindness to me and to poor Anna, Madame Wachner. I do so often wonder what Anna is doing with herself, and where she is staying in Paris." She looked wistfully at her companion.

Madame Wachner was in the act of pouring the boiling water into her china teapot.

"Ah, well," she said, bending over it, "we shall never know that. Your friend was a strange person, what I call a solitaire. She did not like gambling when there were people whom she knew in the Baccarat Room with her. As to what she is doing now—" she shrugged her shoulders, expressively.

"You know she telegraphed for her luggage yesterday?" said Sylvia slowly.

"In that case—if it has had time to arrive—Madame Wolsky is probably on her way to Aix, perhaps even to Monte Carlo. She did not seem to mind whether it was hot or cold if she could get what she wanted—that is, Play—"

Madame Wachner had now made the tea. She turned and stood with arms akimbo, staring out of the little window which gave on the sun-baked lawn bounded by the chestnut wood.

"No," she said slowly, "I do not for a moment suppose that you will ever see Madame Wolsky again. It would surprise me very much if you were to do so. For one thing, she must be—well, rather ashamed of the way she treated you—you who were so kind to her, Sylvie!"

"She was far kinder to me than I was to her," said Sylvia in a low voice.

"Ah, my dear"—Madame Wachner put her fat hand on Sylvia's shoulder—"you have such a kind, warm, generous heart—that is the truth! No, no, Anna Wolsky was not able to appreciate such a friend as you are! But now the tea is made, made strong to the English taste, we must not leave L'Ami Fritz and Mr. Chester alone together. Gentleman are dull without ladies."

Carrying the teapot she led the way into the dining-room, and they sat down round the table.

The little tea-party went off fairly well, but Chester could not forget his strange conversation with Sylvia in the motor. Somehow, he and she had never come so really near to one another as they had done that afternoon. And yet, on the other hand, he felt that she was quite unlike what he had thought her to be. It was as if he had come across a new Sylvia.

Madame Wachner, looking at his grave, absorbed face, felt uneasy. Was it possible that this Englishman intended to take pretty Mrs. Bailey away from Lacville? That would be a pity—a very great pity!

She glanced apprehensively at her husband. L'Ami Fritz would make himself very unpleasant if Sylvia left Lacville just now. He would certainly taunt his wife with all the money they had spent on her entertainment—it was money which they both intended should bear a very high rate of interest.



CHAPTER XXII

The two following days dragged themselves uneventfully away. Sylvia did her best to be kind to Bill Chester, but she felt ill at ease, and could not help showing it.

And then she missed the excitement and interest of the Casino. Bill had not suggested that they should go there, and she would not be the one to do so.

The long motoring expeditions they took each afternoon gave her no pleasure. Her heart was far away, in Brittany; in imagination she was standing by a grave surrounded by a shadowy group of men and women, mourning the old Marquise who had left Count Paul the means to become once more a self-respecting and respected member of the world to which he belonged by right of birth....

Had it not been for the Wachners, these two days of dual solitude with Chester would have been dreary indeed, but Madame Wachner was their companion on more than one long excursion and wherever Madame Wachner went there reigned a kind of jollity and sense of cheer.

Sylvia wondered if the Comte de Virieu was indeed coming back as he had said he would do. And yet she knew that were he to return now, at once, to his old ways, his family, those who loved him, would have the right to think him incorrigible.

As is the way with a woman when she loves, Sylvia did not consider herself as a factor affecting his return to Lacville. Nay, she was bitterly hurt that he had not written her a line since he had left.

And now had come the evening of the day when Count Paul had meant to come back. But M. Polperro said no word of his return. Still, it was quite possible that he would arrive late, and Sylvia did not wish to see him when in the company, not only of Bill Chester, but also of the Wachners.

Somehow or other, she had fallen into the habit each evening of asking the Wachners to dinner. She did so to-day, but suggested dining at a restaurant.

"Yes, if this time, dear Sylvia, the host is L'Ami Fritz!" said Madame Wachner decidedly. And after a slight demur Sylvia consented.

They dined at the hotel which is just opposite the Casino. After the pleasant meal was over, for it had been pleasant, and the cheerful hostess had taken special pains over the menu, Sylvia weary at the thought of another long, dull evening in the drawing-room of the Villa du Lac, was secretly pleased to hear Madame Wachner exclaim coaxingly:

"And now, I do 'ope, Mr. Chester, that you will come over and spend this evening at the Casino! I know you do not approve of the play that goes on there, but still, believe me, it is the only thing to do at Lacville. Lacville would be a very dull place were it not for the Casino!"

Chester smiled.

"You think me far more particular than I am really," he said, lightly. "I don't in the least mind going to the Casino." Why should he be a spoil-sport? "But I confess I cannot understand the kind of attraction play has for some minds. For instance, I cannot understand the extraordinary fascination it seems to exercise over such an intelligent man as is that Comte de Virieu."

Madame Wachner looked at the speaker significantly.

"Ah!" she said. "The poor Count! 'E is what you call 'confirmed'—a confirmed gambler. And 'e will now be able to play more than ever, for I 'ear a fortune 'as been left to 'im!"

Sylvia was startled. She wondered how the Wachners could have come to know of the Count's legacy. She got up, with a nervous, impatient gesture.

How dull, how long, how intolerable had been the last two days spent by her in the company of Bill Chester, varied by that of talkative Madame Wachner and the silent, dour Ami Fritz!

Her heart felt very sore. During that last hour she and Count Paul had spent together in the garden, she had begged him to stay away—to spend the rest of the summer with his sister. Supposing he took her at her word—supposing he never came back to Lacville at all? Sylvia tried to tell herself that in that case she would be glad, and that she only wanted her friend to do the best, the wisest thing for himself.

Such were her thoughts—her painful thoughts—as she walked across from the restaurant to the entrance of the Casino. Two whole days had gone by since she had been there last, and oh! how long each hour of those days had seemed!

The two oddly-assorted couples passed through into the hall, and so up to the closely-guarded doors of the Club.

The Baccarat Room was very full, fuller than usual, for several parties of merry, rather boisterous young men had come out from Paris to spend the evening.

She heard the words that were now so familiar, solemnly shouted out at the further table: "La Banque est aux encheres. Qui prend la Banque?"

There was a pause, and there fell on Sylvia's ears the murmur of two voices—the voice of the official who represented the Casino authorities, and the deep, low voice which had become so dear to her—which thrilled her heart each time she heard it.

Then Count Paul had come back? He had not followed her advice? And instead of being sorry, as she ought to have been, she was glad—glad! Not glad to know that he was here in the Casino—Sylvia was sorry for that—but glad that he was once more close to her. Till this moment she had scarcely realised how much his mere presence meant to her.

She could not see Paul de Virieu, for there was a crowd—a noisy, chattering crowd of over-dressed men, each with a gaudily-dressed feminine companion—encompassing her on every side.

"Vingt mille francs en Banque! Une fois, deux fois, messieurs?" A pause—then the words repeated. "Vingt mille francs en Banque!"

Monsieur Wachner leant his tall, lean form over Sylvia. She looked up surprised, L'Ami Fritz very seldom spoke to her, or for the matter of that to anyone.

"You must play to-night, Madame!" he said imperiously. "I have a feeling that to-night you will bring us luck, as you did that first time you played."

She looked at him hesitatingly. His words made her remember the friend to whom she so seldom gave a thought nowadays.

"Do you remember how pleased poor Anna was that night?" she whispered.

Monsieur Wachner stared at her, and a look of fear, almost of terror, came over his drawn, hatchet face.

"Do not speak of her," he exclaimed harshly. "It might bring us ill-luck!"

And then Chester broke in, "Sylvia, do play if you want to play!" he cried rather impatiently. It angered him to feel that she would not do in his presence what she would most certainly have done were he not there.

And then Sylvia suddenly made up her mind that she would play. Count Paul was holding the Bank. He was risking—how much was it?—twenty thousand francs. Eight hundred pounds of his legacy? That was madness, absolute madness on his part! Well, she would gamble too! There came across her a curious feeling—one that gave her a certain painful joy—the feeling that they two were one. While he was risking his money, she would try to win his money. Were he in luck to-night, she would be glad to know that it would be her money he would win.

M. Wachner officiously made room for her at the table; and, as she sat down, the Comte de Virieu, looking round, saw who had come there, and he flushed and looked away, straight in front of him.

"A Madame la main," said Monsieur Wachner eagerly indicating Sylvia. And the croupier, with a smile, pushed the two fateful cards towards the fair young Englishwoman.

Sylvia took up the two cards. She glanced down at them. Yes, L'Ami Fritz had been right. She was in luck to-night! In a low voice she uttered the welcome words—in French, of course—the words "Nine" and "The King," as she put the cards, face upwards, on the green cloth.

And then there came for her and for those who backed her, just as there had done on that first fateful evening at the Casino, an extraordinary run of good fortune.

Again and again the cards were dealt to Sylvia, and again and again she turned up a Nine, a Queen, a King, an Eight—. Once more the crowd excitedly followed her luck, staring at her with grateful pleasure, with fascinated interest, as she brought them temporary wealth.

The more she won, the more she made other people win, the more miserable Sylvia felt, and as she saw Count Paul's heap of notes and gold diminishing, she grew unutterably wretched. Eight hundred pounds? What an enormous lot of money to risk in an evening!

Then there came a change. For a few turns of the game luck deserted her, and Sylvia breathed more freely. She glanced up into Count Paul's impassive face. He looked worn and tired, as well he might be after his long journey from Brittany.

Then once more magic fortune came back. It seemed as if only good cards—variations on the fateful eights and nines—could be dealt her.

Suddenly she pushed her chair back and got up. Protesting murmurs rose on every side.

"If Madame leaves, the luck will go with her!" she heard one or two people murmur discontentedly.

Chester was looking at her with amused, sarcastic, disapproving eyes.

"Well!" he exclaimed. "I don't wonder you enjoy gambling, Sylvia! Are you often taken this way? How much of that poor fellow's money have you won?"

"Ninety pounds," she answered mechanically.

"Ninety pounds! And have you ever lost as much as that, may I ask, in an evening?" he was still speaking with a good deal of sarcasm in his voice. But still, "money talks," and even against his will Chester was impressed. Ninety pounds represents a very heavy bill of costs in a country solicitor's practice.

Sylvia looked dully into his face.

"No," she said slowly. "No, the most I ever lost in one evening was ten pounds. I always left off playing when I had lost ten pounds. That is the one advantage the player has over the banker—he can stop playing when he has lost a small sum."

"Oh! I see!" exclaimed Chester drily.

And then they became silent, for close by where they now stood, a little apart from the table, an angry altercation was going on between Monsieur and Madame Wachner. It was the first time Sylvia had ever heard the worthy couple quarrelling in public the one with the other.

"I tell you I will not go away!" L'Ami Fritz was saying between his teeth. "I feel that to-night I am in luck, in great luck! What I ask you to do, Sophie, is to go away yourself, and leave me alone. I have made a thousand francs this evening, and at last I have an opportunity of trying my new system. I am determined to try it now, to-night! No—it is no use your speaking to me, no use reminding me of any promise I made to you. If I made such a promise, I mean to break it!"

Sylvia looked round, a good deal concerned. Madame Wachner's face was red, and she was plainly very angry and put out. But when she saw that she and her husband had attracted the attention of their English friends, she made a great effort to regain her self-control and good humour.

"Very well," she said, "Very well, Fritz! Do not speak to me as if I were an ogress or a dragon. I am your wife; it is my duty to obey you. But I will not stay to see you lose the good money you have made with the help of our kind friend, Madame Sylvia. Yes, I will go away and leave you, my poor Fritz."

And suiting her action to her words, she put her arm familiarly through Sylvia's and together they walked out of the Baccarat Room, followed by Chester.

When they were in the vestibule Madame Wachner turned to him with a rueful smile:

"It is a pity," she said, "that Fritz did not come away with us! 'E 'as made a thousand francs. It is a great deal of money for us to make—or to lose. I do not believe 'e will keep it, for, though you bring 'im luck, my dear"—she turned to Sylvia—"that Count always brings 'im bad luck. It 'as been proved to me again and again. Just before you arrived at Lacville with poor Madame Wolsky, Fritz 'ad a 'eavy loss!—a very 'eavy loss, and all because the Comte de Virieu 'eld the Bank!"

"Perhaps the Count will not hold the Bank again to-night," said Sylvia slowly.

"Of course, 'e will do so!" the other spoke quite crossly, "Did I not tell you, Sylvia, that our day servant heard from M. Polperro's wife, whose sister is cook to the Duchesse d'Eglemont, that the Comte de Virieu 'as been left an immense fortune by 'is godmother? Well, it is a fortune that will soon melt"—she chuckled, as if the thought was very pleasant to her. "But I do not think that any of it is likely to melt into Fritz's pocket—though, to be sure, we 'ave been very lucky, all of us, to-night," she looked affectionately at Sylvia.

"Even you, Sir"—Madame Wachner turned to Chester with a broad smile—"even you must be pleased that we came to the Casino to-night. What a pity it is you did not risk something! Even one pound! You might 'ave made quite a nice lot of money to take back to England with you—"

"—Or to spend in Switzerland!" said Chester, laughing. "It is to Switzerland I am going, Madame! I shall leave here the day after to-morrow."

"And will you not come back again?" asked Madame Wachner inquisitively.

"I may come back again if Mrs. Bailey is still here; but I do not suppose she will be, for I intend to spend at least a fortnight in Switzerland."

The three were now approaching the gates of the Villa du Lac.

"Well, Sylvia," cried Chester. "I suppose I must now say good-night? I do not envy you your ill-gotten gains!" He spoke lightly, but there was an undercurrent of reproach in his voice, or so Sylvia fancied.

"Good-night!" she said, and her voice was tremulous.

As she held out her hand the little fancy bag which held all her winnings, the bundle of notes and loose pieces of gold, fell to the ground.

Madame Wachner stooped down and picked it up. "How 'eavy it is!" she exclaimed, enviously. "Good gracious, Sylvia! What a lot you must 'ave made to-night?"

"And the notes don't weigh much," said Sylvia. "It's only the gold that is heavy!"

But she was not thinking of what she was saying. Her heart was full of anguish. How could Paul de Virieu have been so mad as to risk such an immense sum, a tenth part of the fortune—for fortune it was—which had just been left to him?

Sylvia hated herself for having contributed to his losses. She knew that it was absurd that she should feel this, for the same cards would certainly have been dealt to whoever had happened to take them from the croupier. But still, superstition is part of the virus which fills the gambler's blood, and she had certainly won a considerable part of the money Count Paul had lost to-night.

"May I see you back to your house?" asked Chester of Madame Wachner.

"Oh no, Monsieur, I must go hack to the Casino and look after Fritz! 'E is a child—quite a child as regards money." Madame Wachner sighed heavily. "No, no, you go 'ome to bed in the Pension Malfait."

"I shouldn't think of doing such a thing!" he said kindly. "I will come back with you to the Casino, and together we will persuade Monsieur Wachner to go home. He has had time to make or lose a good deal of money in the last few minutes."

"Yes, indeed he 'as—" again Madame Wachner sighed, and Chester's heart went out to her. She was a really nice old woman—clever and intelligent, as well as cheerful and brave. It seemed a great pity that she should be cursed with a gambler for a husband.

As they went back into the Casino they could hear the people round them talking of the Comte de Virieu, and of the high play that had gone on at the club that evening.

"No, he is winning now," they heard someone say. And Madame Wachner looked anxious. If Count Paul were winning, then her Fritz must be losing.

And alas! her fears were justified. When they got up into the Baccarat Room they found L'Ami Fritz standing apart from the tables, his hands in his pockets, staring abstractedly out of a dark window on to the lake.

"Well?" cried Madame Wachner sharply, "Well, Fritz?"

"I have had no luck!" he shook his head angrily. "It is all the fault of that cursed system! If I had only begun at the right, the propitious moment—as I should have done if you had not worried me and asked me to go away—I should probably have made a great deal of money," he looked at her disconsolately, deprecatingly.

Chester also looked at Madame Wachner. He admired the wife's self-restraint. Her red face got a little redder. That was all.

"It cannot be helped," she said a trifle coldly, and in French. "I knew how it would be, so I am not disappointed. Have you anything left? Have you got the five louis I gave you at the beginning of the evening?"

Monsieur Wachner shook his head gloomily.

"Well then, it is about time we went home." She turned and led the way out.



CHAPTER XXIII

As Sylvia went slowly and wearily up to her room a sudden horror of Lacville swept over her excited brain.

For the first time since she had been in the Villa du Lac, she locked the door of her bed room and sat down in the darkness.

She was overwhelmed with feelings of humiliation and pain. She told herself with bitter self-scorn that Paul de Virieu cared nothing for her. If he had cared ever so little he surely would never have done what he had done to-night?

But such thoughts were futile, and soon she rose and turned on the electric light. Then she sat down at a little writing-table which had been thoughtfully provided for her by M. Polperro, and hurriedly, with feverish eagerness, wrote a note.

Dear Count de Virieu—

I am very tired to-night, and I do not feel as if I should be well enough to ride to-morrow.—Yours sincerely,

Sylvia Bailey.

That was all, but it was enough. Hitherto she had evidently been—hateful thought—what the matrons of Market Dalling called "coming on" in her manner to Count Paul; henceforth she would be cold and distant to him.

She put her note into an envelope, addressed it, and went downstairs again. It was very late, but M. Polperro was still up. The landlord never went to bed till each one of his clients was safe indoors.

"Will you kindly see that the Comte de Virieu gets this to-night?" she said briefly. And then, as the little man looked at her with some surprise, "It is to tell the Count that I cannot ride to-morrow morning. It is late, and I am very tired; sleepy, too, after the long motoring expedition I took this afternoon!" She tried to smile.

M. Polperro bowed.

"Certainly, Madame. The Count shall have this note the moment he returns from the Casino. He will not be long now."

But the promises of Southerners are pie-crust. Doubtless M. Polperro meant the Count to have the note that night, but he put it aside and forgot all about it.

Sylvia had a broken night, and she was still sleeping heavily when she was wakened by the now familiar sound of the horses being brought into the courtyard. She jumped out of bed and peeped through an opening in the closed curtains.

It was a beautiful morning. The waters of the lake dimpled in the sun. A door opened, and Sylvia heard voices. Then Count Paul was going riding after all, and by himself? Sylvia felt a pang of unreasoning anger and regret.

Paul de Virieu and M. Polperro were standing side by side; suddenly she saw the hotel-keeper hand the Count, with a gesture of excuse, the note she had written the night before. Count Paul read it through, then he put it back in its envelope, and placed it in the breast pocket of his coat.

He did not send the horses away, as Sylvia in her heart had rather hoped he would do, but he said a word to M. Polperro, who ran into the Villa and returned a moment later with something which he handed, with a deferential bow to the Count.

It was a cardcase, and Paul de Virieu scribbled something on a card and gave it to M. Polperro. A minute later he had ridden out of the gates.

Sylvia moved away from the window, but she was in no mood to go back to bed. She felt restless, excited, sorry that she had given up her ride.

When at last her tea was brought in, she saw the Count's card lying on the tray:

Madame—

I regret very much to hear that you are not well—so ran his pencilled words—but I trust you will be able to come down this morning, for I have a message to give you from my sister.

Believe me, Madame, of all your servants the most devoted.

Paul de Virieu.

They met in the garden—the garden which they had so often had to themselves during their short happy mornings; and, guided by an instinctive longing for solitude, and for being out of sight and out of mind of those about them, they made their way towards the arch in the wall which led to the potager.

It was just ten o'clock, and the gardeners were leaving off work for an hour; they had earned their rest, for their work begins each summer day at sunrise. It was therefore through a sweet-smelling, solitary wilderness that Count Paul guided his companion.

They walked along the narrow paths edged with fragrant herbs till they came to the extreme end of the kitchen-garden, and then—

"Shall we go into the orangery?" he asked abruptly.

Sylvia nodded. These were the first words he had uttered since his short "Good morning. I hope, Madame, you are feeling better?"

He stepped aside to allow her to go first into the large, finely-proportioned building, which was so charming a survival of eighteenth-century taste. The orangery was cool, fragrant, deserted; remote indeed from all that Lacville stands for in this ugly, utilitarian world.

"Won't you sit down?" he said slowly. And then, as if echoing his companion's thoughts, "It seems a long, long time since we were first in the orangery, Madame—"

"—When you asked me so earnestly to leave Lacville," said Sylvia, trying to speak lightly. She sat down on the circular stone seat, and, as he had done on that remembered morning when they were still strangers, he took his place at the other end of it.

"Well?" he said, looking at her fixedly. "Well, you see I came back after all!"

Sylvia made no answer.

"I ought not to have done so. It was weak of me." He did not look at her as he spoke; he was tracing imaginary patterns on the stone floor.

"I came back," he concluded, in a low, bitter tone, "because I could not stay any longer away from you."

And still Sylvia remained silent.

"Do you not believe that?" he asked, rather roughly.

And then at last she looked up and spoke.

"I think you imagine that to be the case," she said, "but I am sure that it is not I, alone, who brought you back to Lacville."

"And yet it is you—you alone!" he exclaimed and he jumped up and came and stood before her.

"God knows I do not wish to deceive you. Perhaps, if I had not come back here, I should in time—not at once, Madame,—have gone somewhere else, where I could enjoy the only thing in life which had come to be worth while living for. But it was you—you alone—that brought me back here, to Lacville!"

"Why did you go straight to the Casino?" she faltered. "And why?—oh, why did you risk all that money?"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"Because I am a fool!" he answered, bitterly—"a fool, and what the English rightly call 'a dog in the manger!' I ought to rejoice when I see you with that excellent fellow, Mr. Chester—and as your friend," he stopped short and then ended his sentence with the words, "I ought to be happy to know that you will have so excellent a husband!"

Sylvia also got up.

"You are quite mistaken," she said, coldly. "I shall never marry Mr. Chester."

"I regret to hear you say that," said Count Paul, seriously. "A woman should not live alone, especially a woman who is young and beautiful, and—and who has money."

Sylvia shook her head. She was angry—more hurt and angry than she had ever felt before in her life. She told herself passionately that the Comte de Virieu was refusing that which had not been offered to him.

"You are very kind," she answered, lightly. "But I have managed very well up to now, and I think I shall go on managing very well. You need not trouble yourself about the matter, Count Paul. Mr. Chester and I thoroughly understand one another—" She waited, and gently she added, "I wish I could understand you—"

"I wish I understood myself," he said sombrely. "But there is one thing that I believe myself incapable of doing. Whatever my feeling, nay, whatever my love, for a woman, I would never do so infamous a thing as to try and persuade her to join her life to mine. I know too well to what I should be exposing her—to what possible misery, nay, to what probable degradation! After all, a man is free to go to the devil alone—but he has no right to drag a woman there with him!"

His voice had sunk to a hoarse whisper, and he was gazing into Sylvia's pale face with an anguished look of questioning and of pleading pain.

"I think that is true, Count Paul." Sylvia heard herself uttering gently, composedly, the words which meant at once so much and so little to them both. "It is a pity that all men do not feel about this as you do," she concluded mechanically.

"I felt sure you would agree with me," he answered slowly.

"Ought we not to be going back to the villa? I am expecting Mr. Chester to lunch, and though I know it is quite early, he has got into the way, these last few days, of coming early."

Her words stung him in his turn.

"Stop!" he said roughly. "Do not go yet, Mrs. Bailey." He muttered between his teeth, "Mr. Chester's turn will come!" And then aloud, "Is this to be the end of everything—the end of our—our friendship? I shall leave Lacville to-night for I do not care to stay on here after you have taunted me with having come back to see you!"

Sylvia gave a little cry of protest.

"How unkind you are, Count Paul!" She still tried to speak lightly, but the tears were now rolling down her cheeks—and then in a moment she found herself in Paul de Virieu's arms. She felt his heart beating against her breast.

"Oh, my darling!" he whispered brokenly, in French, "my darling, how I love you!"

"But if you love me," she said piteously, "what does anything else matter?"

Her hand had sought his hand. He grasped it for a moment and then let it go.

"It is because I love you—because I love you more than I love myself that I give you up," he said, but, being human, he did not give her up there and then. Instead, he drew her closer to him, and his lips sought and found her sweet, tremulous mouth.

* * * * *

And Chester? Chester that morning for the first time in his well-balanced life felt not only ill but horribly depressed. He had come back to the Pension Malfait the night before feeling quite well, and as cheerful as his disapproval of Sylvia Bailey's proceedings at the Casino allowed him to be. And while thoroughly disapproving, he had yet—such being human nature—been glad that Sylvia had won and not lost!

The Wachners had offered to drive him back to his pension, and he had accepted, for it was very late, and Madame Wachner, in spite of her Fritz's losses, had insisted on taking a carriage home.

And then, though he had begun by going to sleep, Chester had waked at the end of an hour to feel himself encompassed, environed, oppressed by the perception—it was far more than a sensation—that he was no longer alone.

He sat up in bed and struck a match, at once longing and fearing to see a form,—the semblance of a human being—rise out of the darkness.

But all he saw, when he had lighted the candle which stood on the table by his bed, was the barely furnished room which, even in this poor and wavering light, had so cheerful and commonplace an appearance.

Owing no doubt to his excellent physical condition, as well as to his good conscience, Chester was a fearless man. A week ago he would have laughed to scorn the notion that the dead ever revisit the earth, as so many of us believe they do, but the four nights he had spent at the Pension Malfait, had shaken his conviction that "dead men rise up never."

Most reluctantly he had come to the conclusion that the Pension Malfait was haunted.

And the feeling of unease did not vanish even after he had taken his bath in the queer bath-room, of which the Malfaits were so proud, or later, when he had eaten the excellent breakfast provided for him. On the contrary, the thought of going up to his bed-room, even in broad daylight, filled him with a kind of shrinking fear.

He told himself angrily that this kind of thing could not go on. The sleepless nights made him ill—he who never was ill; also he was losing precious days of his short holiday, while doing no good to himself and no good to Sylvia.

Sending for the hotel-keeper, he curtly told him that he meant to leave Lacville that evening.

M. Malfait expressed much sorrow and regret. Was M'sieur not comfortable? Was there anything he could do to prolong his English guest's stay?

No, M'sieur had every reason to be satisfied, but—but had M. Malfait ever had any complaints of noises in the bed-room occupied by his English guest?

The Frenchman's surprise and discomfiture seemed quite sincere; but Chester, looking into his face, suspected that the wondering protests, the assertion that this particular bed-room was the quietest in the house, were not sincere. In this, however he wronged poor M. Malfait.

Chester went upstairs and packed. There seemed to be a kind of finality in the act. If she knew he was ready to start that night, Sylvia would not be able to persuade him to stay on, as she probably would try to do.

At the Villa du Lac he was greeted with, "Madame Bailey is in the garden with the Comte de Virieu"—and he thought he saw a twinkle in merry little M. Polperro's eyes.

Poor Sylvia! Poor, foolish, wilful Sylvia! Was it conceivable that after what she had seen the night before she still liked, she still respected, that mad French gambler?

He looked over the wide lawn; no, there was no sign of Sylvia and the Count. Then, all at once, coming through a door which gave access, as he knew, to the big kitchen-garden of the villa, he saw Mrs. Bailey's graceful figure; a few steps behind her walked Count Paul.

Chester hurried towards them. How odd they both looked—and how ill at ease! The Comte de Virieu looked wretched, preoccupied, and gloomy—as well he might do, considering the large sum of money he had lost last night. As for Sylvia—yes, there could be no doubt about it—she had been crying! When she saw Chester coming towards her, she instinctively tilted her garden hat over her face to hide her reddened eyelids. He felt at once sorry for, and angry with, her.

"I came early in order to tell you," he said abruptly, "that I find I must leave Lacville to-day! The man whom I am expecting to join me in Switzerland is getting impatient, so I've given notice to the Pension Malfait—in fact, I've already packed."

Sylvia gave him a listless glance, and made no comment on his news.

Chester felt rather nettled. "You, I suppose, will be staying on here for some time?" he said.

"I don't know," she answered in a low voice. "I haven't made up my mind how long I shall stay here."

"I also am leaving Lacville," said the Comte de Virieu.

And then, as he saw, or fancied he saw, a satirical expression pass over the Englishman's face, he added rather haughtily:

"Strange to say, my luck turned last night—I admit I did not deserve it—and I left off with a good deal to the good. However, I feel I have played enough for a while, and, as I have been telling Mrs. Bailey, I think it would do me good to go away. In fact"—and then Count Paul gave an odd little laugh—"I also am going to Switzerland! In old days I was a member of our Alpine Club."

Chester made a sudden resolve, and, what was rare in one so constitutionally prudent, acted on it at once.

"If you are really going to Switzerland," he said quietly, "then why should we not travel together? I meant to go to-night, but if you prefer to wait till to-morrow, Count, I can alter my arrangements."

The Comte de Virieu remained silent for what seemed to the two waiting for his answer a very long time.

"This evening will suit me just as well as to-morrow," he said at last.

He did not look at Sylvia. He had not looked her way since Chester had joined them. With a hand that shook a little he took his cigarette-case out of his pocket, and held it out to the other man.

The die was cast. So be it. Chester, prig though he might be, was right in his wish to remove Sylvia from his, Paul de Virieu's, company. The Englishman was more right than he would ever know.

How amazed Chester would have been had he been able to see straight into Paul de Virieu's heart! Had he divined the other's almost unendurable temptation to take Sylvia Bailey at her word, to impose on her pathetic ignorance of life, to allow her to become a gambler's wife.

Had the woman he loved been penniless, the Comte de Virieu would probably have yielded to the temptation which now came in the subtle garb of jealousy—keen, poisoned-fanged jealousy of this fine looking young Englishman who stood before them both.

Would Sylvia ever cling to this man as she had clung to him—would she ever allow Chester to kiss her as she had allowed Paul to kiss her, and that after he had released the hand she had laid in his?

But alas! there are kisses and kisses—clingings and clingings. Chester, so the Frenchman with his wide disillusioned knowledge of life felt only too sure, would win Sylvia in time.

"Shall we go in and find out the time of the Swiss express?" he asked the other man, "or perhaps you have already decided on a train?"

"No, I haven't looked one out yet."

They strolled off together towards the house, and Sylvia walked blindly on to the grass and sat down on one of the rocking-chairs of which M. Polperro was so proud.

She looked after the two men with a sense of oppressed bewilderment. Then they were both going away—both going to leave her?

After to-day—how strange, how utterly unnatural the parting seemed—she would probably never see Paul de Virieu again.

* * * * *

The day went like a dream—a fantastic, unreal dream.

Sylvia did not see Count Paul again alone. She and Chester went a drive in the afternoon—the expedition had been arranged the day before with the Wachners, and there seemed no valid reason why it should be put off.

And then Madame Wachner with her usual impulsive good nature, on hearing that both Chester and the Comte de Virieu were going away, warmly invited Sylvia to supper at the Chalet des Muguets for that same night, and Sylvia listlessly accepted. She did not care what she did or where she went.

At last came the moment of parting.

"I'll go and see you off at the station," she said, and Chester, rather surprised, raised one or two objections. "I'm determined to come," she cried angrily. "What a pity it is, Bill, that you always try and manage other people's business for them!"

And she did go to the station—only to be sorry for it afterwards.

Paul de Virieu, holding her hand tightly clasped in his for the last time, had become frightfully pale, and as she made her way back to the Casino, where the Wachners were actually waiting for her, Sylvia was haunted by his reproachful, despairing eyes.



CHAPTER XXIV

It was nearly nine o'clock, and for the moment the Casino was very empty, for the afternoon players had left, and the evening serie, as M. Polperro contemptuously called them—the casual crowd of night visitors to Lacville—had not yet arrived from Paris.

"And now," said Madame Wachner, suddenly, "is it not time for us to go and 'ave our little supper?"

The "citizeness of the world" had been watching her husband and Sylvia playing at Baccarat; both of them had won, and Sylvia had welcomed, eagerly, the excitement of the tables.

Count Paul's muttered farewell echoed in her ears, and the ornately decorated gambling room seemed full of his presence.

She made a great effort to put any intimate thought of him away. The next day, so she told herself, she would go back to England, to Market Dalling. There she must forget that such a place as Lacville existed; there she must banish Paul de Virieu from her heart and memory. Yes, there was nothing now to keep her here, in this curious place, where she had eaten, in more than one sense, of the bitter fruit of the tree of knowledge.

With a deep, involuntary sigh, she rose from the table.

She looked at the green cloth, at the people standing round it, with an odd feeling that neither the table nor the people round her were quite real. Her heart and thoughts were far away, with the two men both of whom loved her in their very different ways.

Then she turned with an unmirthful smile to her companions. It would not be fair to let her private griefs sadden the kindly Wachners. It was really good of them to have asked her to come back to supper at the Chalet des Muguets. She would have found it terribly lonely this evening at the Villa du Lac....

"I am quite ready," she said, addressing herself more particularly to Madame Wachner; and the three walked out of the Club rooms.

"Shall we take a carriage?" Sylvia asked diffidently; she knew her stout friend disliked walking.

"No, no," said Monsieur Wachner shortly. "There is no need to take a carriage to-night; it is so fine, and, besides, it is not very far."

He so seldom interfered or negatived any suggestion that Sylvia felt a little surprised, the more so that it was really a long walk from the Casino to the lonely Chalet des Muguets. But as Madame Wachner had nodded assent to her husband's words, their English guest said no more.

They started out into the moonlit night, Sylvia with her light, springing step keeping pace with L'Ami Fritz, while his wife lagged a step behind. But, as was usual with him, M. Wachner remained silent, while his companions talked.

To-night, however, Madame Wachner did not show her usual tact; she began discussing the two travellers who were now well started, no doubt, on their way to Switzerland, and she expressed contemptuous surprise that the Comte de Virieu had left Lacville.

"I am glad 'e 'as gone away," she said cheerfully, "for the Count is what English people call so supercilious—so different to that excellent Mr. Chester! I wonder Mr. Chester was willing for the Count's company. But you 'ave not lost 'im, my pretty Sylvia! 'E will soon be back!"

As she spoke she laughed coarsely, and Sylvia made no answer. She thought it probable that she would never see the Comte de Virieu again, and the conviction hurt intolerably. It was painful to be reminded of him now, in this way, and by a woman who she knew disliked and despised him.

She suddenly felt sorry that she had accepted the Wachner's invitation.

To-night the way to the Chalet des Muguets seemed longer than usual—far longer than it had seemed the last time Sylvia had walked there, when Count Paul had been her companion. It seemed as if an immense time had gone by since then....

Sylvia was glad when at last the three of them came within sight of the familiar white gate. How strangely lonely the little house looked, standing back in the twilit darkness of a summer night.

"I wonder"—Sylvia Bailey looked up at her silent companion, L'Ami Fritz had not opened his lips once during the walk from the Casino, "I wonder that you and Madame Wachner are not afraid to leave the chalet alone for so many hours of each day! Your servant always goes away after lunch, doesn't she?"

"There is nothing to steal," he answered shortly. "We always carry all our money about with us—all sensible people do so at Lacville and at Monte Carlo."

Madame Wachner was now on Sylvia's other side.

"Yes," she interposed, rather breathlessly, "that is so; and I 'ope that you, dear friend, followed the advice we gave you about the matter? I mean, I 'ope you do not leave your money in the hotel?"

"Of course I don't," said Sylvia, smiling. "Ever since you gave me those pretty little leather pouches I always carry all my money about with me, strapped round my waist. At first it wasn't very comfortable, but I have got quite used to it now."

"That is right," said Madame Wachner, heartily, "that is quite right! There are rogues everywhere, perhaps even in the Villa du Lac, if we knew everything!" and Sylvia's hostess laughed in the darkness her hearty, jovial laugh.

Suddenly she bent forward and addressed her husband. "By the way, Ami Fritz, have you written that letter to the Villa du Lac?" She nodded, explaining to Sylvia, "We are anxious to get a room in your beautiful pension for a rich friend of ours."

Sylvia had the instant feeling—she could not have told why—that his wife's question had greatly annoyed Monsieur Wachner.

"Of course I have written the letter!" he snapped out. "Do I ever forget anything?"

"But I'm afraid there is no room vacant in the Villa du Lac," said Sylvia. "And yet—well, I suppose they have not yet had time to let the Comte de Virieu's room. They only knew he was going this morning. But you need not have troubled to write a letter, Monsieur Wachner. I could have given the message when I got back to-night. In any case let me take your letter."

"Ah! but the person in question may arrive before you get back," said Madame Wachner. "No, no, we have arranged to send the letter by a cabman who will call for it."

Monsieur Wachner pushed opened the white gate, and all three began walking up through the garden. The mantle of night now draped every straggling bush, every wilted flower, and the little wilderness was filled with delicious, pungent night scents.

When they reached the front door L'Ami Fritz stooped down, and began looking under the mat.

Sylvia smiled in the darkness; there seemed something so primitive, so simple, in keeping the key of one's front door outside under the mat! And yet foolish, prejudiced people spoke of Lacville as a dangerous spot, as the plague pit of Paris.

Suddenly the door was opened by the day-servant. And both the husband and wife uttered an involuntary exclamation of surprise and displeasure.

"What are you doing here?" asked Madame Wachner harshly. There was a note of dismay, as well as of anger, in her voice.

The woman began to excuse herself volubly. "I thought I might be of some use, Madame. I thought I might help you with all the last details."

"There was no necessity—none at all—for doing anything of the kind," said her mistress, in a low, quick voice. "You had been paid! You had had your present! However, as you are here, you may as well lay a third place in the dining-room, for, as you see, we have brought Madame Bailey back to have a little supper. She will only stay a very few moments, as she has to be at the Villa du Lac by ten o'clock."

The woman turned and threw open the door of the dining-room. Then she struck a match, and lighted a lamp which stood on the table.

Sylvia, as is often the case with those who have been much thrown with French people, could understand French much better than she could speak it, and what Madame Wachner had just hissed out in rapid, mumbling tones, surprised and puzzled her.

It was quite untrue that she, Sylvia, had to be back at the Villa du Lac by ten o'clock—for the matter of that, she could stay out as long and as late as she liked.

Then, again, although the arrangement that she should come to supper at the Chalet des Muguets to-night had been made that afternoon, the Wachners had been home, but they had evidently forgotten to tell their servant that they were expecting a visitor, for only two places were laid in the little dining-room into which they all three walked on entering the house.

Propped up against the now lighted lamp was a letter addressed to Monsieur Polperro in a peculiar, large handwriting. L'Ami Fritz, again uttering that queer guttural exclamation, snatched up the envelope, and hurriedly put it into his breast-pocket.

"I brought that letter out of M'sieur's bed-room," observed the day-servant, cringingly. "I feared M'sieur had forgotten it! Would M'sieur like me to take it to the Villa du Lac on my way home?"

"No," said Monsieur Wachner, shortly. "There is no need for you to do that; Madame Bailey will kindly take it for me."

And again Sylvia felt surprised. Surely he had said—or was it Madame Wachner?—that they had arranged for a man to call for it.

His wife shouted out his name imperiously from the dark passage, "Fritz! Fritz! Come here a moment; I want you."

He hurried out of the room, and Sylvia and the servant were thus left alone together for a few moments in the dining-room.

The woman went to the buffet and took up a plate; she came and placed it noisily on the table, and, under cover of the sound she made, "Do not stay here, Madame," she whispered, thrusting her wrinkled, sharp-featured face close to the Englishwoman's. "Come away with me! Say you want me to wait a bit and conduct you back to the Villa du Lac."

Sylvia stared at her distrustfully. This femme de menage had a disagreeable face; there was a cunning, avaricious look in her eyes, or so Mrs. Bailey fancied; no doubt she remembered the couple of francs which had been given to her, or rather extorted by her, on the occasion of the English lady's last visit to the Chalet des Muguets.

"I will not say more," the servant went on, speaking very quickly, and under her breath. "But I am an honest woman, and these people frighten me. Still, I am not one to want embarrassments with the police."

And Sylvia suddenly remembered that those were exactly the words which had been uttered by Anna Wolsky's landlady in connection with Anna's disappearance. How frightened French people seemed to be of the police!

There came the sound of steps in the passage, and the Frenchwoman moved away quickly from Sylvia's side. She took up the plate she had just placed on the table, and to Sylvia's mingled disgust and amusement began rubbing it vigorously with her elbow.

Monsieur Wachner entered the room.

"That will do, that will do, Annette," he said patronisingly. "Come here, my good woman! Your mistress and I desire to give you a further little gift as you have shown so much zeal to-day, so here is twenty francs."

"Merci, M'sieur."

Without looking again at Sylvia the woman went out of the room, and a moment later the front door slammed behind her.

"My wife discovered that it is Annette's fete day to-morrow, and gave her a trifle. But she was evidently not satisfied, and no doubt that was why she stayed on to-night," observed Monsieur Wachner solemnly.

Madame Wachner now came in. She had taken off her bonnet and changed her elastic-sided boots for easy slippers.

"Oh, those French people!" she exclaimed. "How greedy they are for money! But—well, Annette has earned her present very fairly—" She shrugged her shoulders.

"May I go and take off my hat?" asked Sylvia; she left the room before Madame Wachner could answer her, and hurried down the short, dark passage.

The door of the moonlit kitchen was ajar, and to her surprise she saw that a large trunk, corded and even labelled, stood in the middle of the floor. Close to the trunk was a large piece of sacking—and by it another coil of thick rope.

Was it possible that the Wachners, too, were leaving Lacville? If so, how very odd of them not to have told her!

As she opened the door of the bed-room Madame Wachner waddled up behind her.

"Wait a moment!" she cried. "Or perhaps, dear friend, you do not want a light? You see, we have been rather upset to-day, for L'Ami Fritz has to go away for two or three days, and that is a great affair! We are so very seldom separated. 'Darby and Joan,' is not that what English people would call us?"

"The moon is so bright I can see quite well," Sylvia was taking off her hat; she put it, together with a little fancy bag in which she kept the loose gold she played with at the gambling tables, on Madame Wachner's bed. She felt vaguely uncomfortable, for even as Madame Wachner had spoken she had become aware that the bed-room was almost entirely cleared of everything belonging to its occupants. However, the Wachners, like Anna Wolsky, had the right to go away without telling anyone of their intention.

As they came back into the dining-room together, Mrs. Bailey's host, who was already sitting down at table, looked up.

"Words! Words! Words!" he exclaimed harshly. "Instead of talking so much why do you not both come here and eat your suppers? I am very hungry."

Sylvia had never heard the odd, silent man speak in such a tone before, but his wife answered quite good-humouredly,

"You forget, Fritz, that the cabman is coming. Till he has come and gone we shall not have peace."

And sure enough, within a moment of her saying those words there came a sound of shuffling footsteps on the garden path.

Monsieur Wachner got up and went out of the room. He opened the front door, and Sylvia overheard a few words of the colloquy between her host and his messenger.

"Yes, you are to take it now, at once. Just leave it at the Villa du Lac. You will come for us—you will come, that is, for me"—Monsieur Wachner raised his voice—"to-morrow morning at half-past six. I desire to catch the 7.10 train to Paris."

There was a jingle of silver, and then Sylvia caught the man's answering, "Merci, c'est entendu, M'sieur."

But L'Ami Fritz did not come back at once to the dining-room. He went out into the garden and accompanied the man down to the gate.

When he came back again he put a large key on the dining-table.

"There!" he said, with a grunt of satisfaction. "Now there will be nothing to disturb us any more."

They all three sat down at the round dining-table. To Sylvia's surprise a very simple meal was set out before them. There was only one small dish of galantine. When Sylvia Bailey had been to supper with the Wachners before, there had always been two or three tempting cold dishes, and some dainty friandises as well, the whole evidently procured from the excellent confectioner who drives such a roaring trade at Lacville. To-night, in addition to the few slices of galantine, there was only a little fruit.

Then a very odd thing happened.

L'Ami Fritz helped first his wife and himself largely, then Sylvia more frugally. It was perhaps a slight matter, the more so that Monsieur Wachner was notoriously forgetful, being ever, according to his wife, absorbed in his calculations and "systems." But all the same, this extraordinary lack of good manners on her host's part added to Sylvia's feeling of strangeness and discomfort.

Indeed, the Wachners were both very unlike their usual selves this evening. Madame Wachner had suddenly become very serious, her stout red face was set in rather grim, grave lines; and twice, as Sylvia was eating the little piece of galantine which had been placed on her plate by L'Ami Fritz, she looked up and caught her hostess's eyes fixed on her with a curious, alien scrutiny.

When they had almost finished the meat, Madame Wachner suddenly exclaimed in French.

"Fritz! You have forgotten to mix the salad! Whatever made you forget such an important thing? You will find what is necessary in the drawer behind you."

Monsieur Wachner made no answer. He got up and pulled the drawer of the buffet open. Taking out of it a wooden spoon and fork, he came back to the table and began silently mixing the salad.

The two last times Sylvia had been at the Chalet des Muguets, her host, in deference to her English taste, had put a large admixture of vinegar in the salad dressing, but this time she saw that he soused the lettuce-leaves with oil.

At last, "Will you have some salad, Mrs. Bailey?" he said brusquely, and in English. He spoke English far better than did his wife.

"No," she said. "Not to-night, thank you!"

And Sylvia, smiling, looked across at Madame Wachner, expecting to see in the older woman's face a humorous appreciation of the fact that L'Ami Fritz had forgotten her well-known horror of oil.

Mrs. Bailey's dislike of the favourite French salad-dressing ingredient had long been a joke among the three, nay, among the four, for Anna Wolsky had been there the last time Sylvia had had supper with the Wachners. It had been such a merry meal!

To-night no meaning smile met hers; instead she only saw that odd, grave, considering look on her hostess's face.

Suddenly Madame Wachner held out her plate across the table, and L'Ami Fritz heaped it up with the oily salad.

Sylvia Bailey's plate was empty, but Monsieur Wachner did not seem to notice that his guest lacked anything. And at last, to her extreme astonishment, she suddenly saw him take up one of the two pieces of meat remaining on the dish, and, leaning across, drop it on his wife's plate. Then he helped himself to the last remaining morsel.

It was such a trifling thing really, and due of course to her host's singular absent-mindedness; yet, even so, taken in connection with both the Wachners' silence and odd manner, this lack of the commonest courtesy struck Sylvia with a kind of fear—with fear and with pain. She felt so hurt that the tears came into her eyes.

There was a long moment's pause—then,

"Do you not feel well," asked Madame Wachner harshly, "or are you grieving for the Comte de Virieu?"

Her voice had become guttural, full of coarse and cruel malice, and even as she spoke she went on eating voraciously.

Sylvia Bailey pushed her chair back, and rose to her feet.

"I should like to go home now," she said quietly, "for it is getting late,"—her voice shook a little. She was desperately afraid of disgracing herself by a childish outburst of tears. "I can make my way back quite well without Monsieur Wachner's escort."

She saw her host shrug his shoulders. He made a grimace at his wife; it expressed annoyance, nay, more, extreme disapproval.

Madame Wachner also got up. She wiped her mouth with her napkin, and then laid her hand on Sylvia's shoulder.

"Come, come," she exclaimed, and this time she spoke quite kindly, "you must not be cross with me, dear friend! I was only laughing, I was only what you call in England 'teasing.' The truth is I am very vexed and upset that our supper is not better. I told that fool Frenchwoman to get in something really nice, and she disobeyed me! I was 'ungry, too, for I 'ad no dejeuner to-day, and that makes one 'ollow, does it not? But now L'Ami Fritz is going to make us some good coffee! After we 'ave 'ad it you shall go away if so is your wish, but my 'usband will certainly accompany you—"

"Most certainly I will do so; you will not move—no, not a single step—without me," said Monsieur Wachner solemnly.

And then Madame Wachner burst out into a sudden peal of laughter—laughter which was infectious.

Sylvia smiled too, and sat down again. After all, as Paul de Virieu had truly said, not once, but many times, the Wachners were not refined people—but they were kind and very good-natured. And then she, Sylvia, was tired and low-spirited to-night—no doubt she had imagined the change in their manner, which had so surprised and hurt her.

Madame Wachner was quite her old self again; just now she was engaged in heaping all the cherries which were in the dessert dish on her guest's plate, in spite of Sylvia's eager protest.

L'Ami Fritz got up and left the room. He was going into the kitchen to make the coffee.

"Mr. Chester was telling me of your valuable pearls," said Madame Wachner pleasantly. "I was surprised! What a lot of money to 'ang round one's neck! But it is worth it if one 'as so lovely a neck as 'as the beautiful Sylvia! May I look at your pearls, dear friend? Or do you never take them off?"

Sylvia unclasped the string of pearls and laid it on the table.

"Yes, they are rather nice," she said modestly. "I always wear them, even at night. Many people have a knot made between each pearl, for that, of course, makes the danger of losing them much less should the string break. But mine are not knotted, for a lady once told me that it made the pearls hang much less prettily; she said it would be quite safe if I had them restrung every six months. So that is what I do. I had them restrung just before coming to France."

Madame Wachner reverentially took up the pearls in her large hand; she seemed to be weighing them.

"How heavy they are," she said at length, and now she spoke French.

"Yes," said Sylvia, "you can always tell a real pearl by its weight."

"And to think," went on her hostess musingly, "that each of these tiny balls is worth—how much is it worth?—at least five or six hundred francs, I suppose?"

"Yes," said Sylvia again, "I'm glad to say they have increased in value during the last few years. You see, pearls are the only really fashionable gems just now."

"And they cannot be identified like other fine jewels," observed Madame Wachner, "but I suppose they are worth more together than separately?" she was still speaking in that thoughtful, considering tone.

"Oh, I don't know that," said Sylvia, smiling. "Each separate pearl is worth a good deal, but still I daresay you are right, for these are beautifully matched. I got them, by a piece of great luck, without having to pay—well, what I suppose one would call the middle-man's profit! I just paid what I should have done at a good London sale."

"And you paid?—seven—eight 'undred pounds?" asked Madame Wachner, this time in English, and fixing her small, dark eyes on the fair Englishwoman's face.

"Oh, rather more than that." Sylvia grew a little red. "But as I said just now, they are always increasing in value. Even Mr. Chester, who did not approve of my getting these pearls, admits that I made a good bargain."

Through the open door she thought she heard Monsieur Wachner coming back down the passage. So she suddenly took the pearls out of the other woman's hand and clasped the string about her neck again.

L'Ami Fritz came into the room. He was holding rather awkwardly a little tray on which were two cups—one a small cup, the other a large cup, both filled to the brim with black coffee. He put the small cup before his guest, the large cup before his wife.

"I hope you do not mind having a small cup," he said solemnly. "I remember that you do not care to take a great deal of coffee, so I have given you the small cup."

Sylvia looked up.

"Oh dear!" she exclaimed, "I ought to have told you before you made it, Monsieur Wachner—but I won't have any coffee to-night. The last time I took some I lay awake all night."

"Oh, but you must take coffee!" Madame Wachner spoke good-humouredly, but with great determination. "The small amount you have in that little cup will not hurt you; and besides it is a special coffee, L'Ami Fritz's own mixture"—she laughed heartily.

And again? Sylvia noticed that Monsieur Wachner looked at his wife with a fixed, rather angry look, as much as to say, "Why are you always laughing? Why cannot you be serious sometimes?"

"But to-night, honestly, I would really rather not have any coffee!"

Sylvia had suddenly seen a vision of herself lying wide awake during long dark hours—hours which, as she knew by experience, generally bring to the sleepless, worrying thoughts.

"No, no, I will not have any coffee to-night," she repeated.

"Yes, yes, dear friend, you really must," Madame Wachner spoke very persuasively. "I should be truly sorry if you did not take this coffee. Indeed, it would make me think you were angry with us because of the very bad supper we had given you! L'Ami Fritz would not have taken the trouble to make coffee for his old wife. He has made it for you, only for you; he will be hurt if you do not take it!"

The coffee did look very tempting and fragrant.

Sylvia had always disliked coffee in England, but somehow French coffee was quite different; it had quite another taste from that of the mixture which the ladies of Market Dalling pressed on their guests at their dinner-parties.

She lifted the pretty little cup to her lips—but the coffee, this coffee of L'Ami Fritz, his special mixture, as his wife had termed it, had a rather curious taste, it was slightly bitter—decidedly not so nice as that which she was accustomed to drink each day after dejeuner at the Villa du Lac. Surely it would be very foolish to risk a bad night for a small cup of indifferent coffee?

She put the cup down, and pushed it away.

"Please do not ask me to take it," she said firmly. "It really is very bad for me!"

Madame Wachner shrugged her shoulders with an angry gesture.

"So be it," she said, and then imperiously, "Fritz, will you please come with me for a moment into the next room? I have something to ask you."

He got up and silently obeyed his wife. Before leaving the room he slipped the key of the garden gate into his trousers pocket.

A moment later Sylvia, left alone, could hear them talking eagerly to one another in that strange, unknown tongue in which they sometimes—not often—addressed one another.

She got up from her chair, seized with a sudden, eager desire to slip away before they came back. For a moment she even thought of leaving the house without waiting for her hat and little fancy bag; and then, with a strange sinking of the heart she remembered that the white gate was locked, and that L'Ami Fritz had now the key of it in his pocket.

But in no case would Sylvia have had time to do what she had thought of doing, for a moment later her host and hostess were back in the room.

Madame Wachner sat down again at the dining-table,

"One moment!" she exclaimed, rather breathlessly. "Just wait till I 'ave finished my coffee, Sylvia dear, and then L'Ami Fritz will escort you 'ome."

Rather unwillingly, Sylvia again sat down.

Monsieur Wachner was paying no attention either to his guest or to his wife. He took up the chair on which he had been sitting, and placed it out of the way near the door. Then he lifted the lighted lamp off the table and put it on the buffet.

As he did so, Sylvia, looking up, saw the shadow of his tall, lank figure thrown grotesquely, hugely, against the opposite wall of the room.

"Now take the cloth off the table," he said curtly. And his wife, gulping down the last drops of her coffee, got up and obeyed him.

Sylvia suddenly realised that they were getting ready for something—that they wanted the room cleared.

As with quick, deft fingers she folded up the cloth, Madame Wachner exclaimed, "As you are not taking any coffee, Sylvia, perhaps it is time for you now to get up and go away."

Sylvia Bailey looked across at the speaker, and reddened deeply. She felt very angry. Never in the course of her pleasant, easy, prosperous life had anyone ventured to dismiss her in this fashion from their house.

She rose, for the second time during the course of her short meal, to her feet—

And then, in a flash, there occurred that which transformed her anger into agonised fear—fear and terror.

The back of her neck had been grazed by something sharp and cold, and as she gave a smothered cry she saw that her string of pearls had parted in two. The pearls were now falling quickly one by one, and rolling all over the floor.