"So I was, monsieur, but Henriette told me I should be in the way."

"In the way, Pierre!" Harry repeated in surprise.

"Ah, monsieur," Pierre said with a twinkle in his eye, "you have
been deceiving us. My wife saw it in a moment when the young lady
came to breakfast.

"'Brother!' she said to me when you went out; 'don't tell me!
Monsieur is the young lady's lover. Brother and sister don't look
at each other like that. Why, one could see it with half an eye.'

"Your wife is right, Pierre; mademoiselle is my fiance. I am really
an Englishman. She and her sister had their old nurse with them,
till the latter died some three weeks since; but I have always been
called their brother, because it made it easier for her."

"Quite right, monsieur; but my wife and I are glad to see that it
is otherwise, and that, after all you have risked for that pretty
creature, you are going to be happy together. My wife was not
surprised. Women are sharper than men in these matters, and she
said to me, when she heard what you were going to do to save them,
'I would wager, Pierre, that one of these mesdemoiselles is not
monsieur's sister. Men will do a great deal for their sister, but
I never heard of a man throwing away his life as he is going to do
on the mere chance of saving one.'"

"I should have done just the same had it been one of my sisters,"
Harry said a little indignantly.