"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