Chester, hesitatingly.

"Yes, we had better go first to the Villa du Lac, for Mrs. Bailey should
be home by now. By the way, Mr. Chester, you had better ask to have my
room to-night; we know that it is disengaged. As for me, I will go on
somewhere else as soon as I know you have seen our friend. Please do not
tell Mrs. Bailey that I came with you. Where would be the use? I may go
back to Paris to-night." Paul de Virieu spoke in a constrained,
preoccupied voice.

"But aren't you coming in? Won't you stay at Lacville at least till
to-morrow?"

Chester's voice unwittingly became far more cordial; if the Frenchman did
not wish to see Sylvia, why had he insisted on coming back, too, to
Lacville.

The hall of the Villa du Lac was brightly lit up, and as the victoria
swept up the short drive to the stone horseshoe stairway, the Comte de
Virieu suddenly grasped the other's hand.

"Good luck!" he exclaimed, "Good luck, fortunate man! As the Abbot at my
English school used to say to me when he met me, as a little boy, running
about the cloisters, 'God bless you!'"

Chester was rather touched, as well as surprised. But what queer,
emotional fellows Frenchmen are to be sure! Although Count Paul, as
Sylvia used to call him, had evidently been a little bit in love with her
himself, he was quite willing to think of her as married to another man!