may have learned to admire, I may add that
only the special kind of dog's luck which attaches itself to
members of my family, saved me from being killed by you. But
that is ancient history now.

I am glad to hear that your wound was not really serious.
There was no sense in merely crippling you--my only chance
lay in procuring your untimely demise. Having failed,
however, I want to tell you, with the utmost sincerity, that
I never had the slightest intention of carrying out my
abominable threat in regard to the fair lady who is now
Viscountess Medenham. Were you other than a heavy-witted and
thick-skinned Briton, you would have known that I was
goading you into issuing a challenge.

This piece of information is my wedding present; it is all I
can give, because, metaphorically speaking, I haven't a sou!

I am, as you see, domiciled in Brussels, where my car is
attached by an unsympathetic hotel proprietor. Still, I
am devoid of rancor, and mean to keep a sharp eye for a
well-favored and well-dowered wife; such a one, in fact, as
you managed to snap up under my very nose.

With a thousand compliments, I am,

Yours very sincerely,
EDOUARD MARIGNY.

P.S.--Devar went "steerage" to the United States when he
heard of our affair. He thought it was all up with you, and
with him.

"The wretch!" murmured Cynthia. "Can he really believe even yet that I
would have married him?"

"I don't care tuppence what he believes," said Medenham, giving her a
reassuring hug. "Indeed, I have a mind to write and ask him how much
he owes in that hotel. Don't you see, my dear, that if it hadn't been
for Marigny there was a chance that I might have left you at Bristol."

"Never!" cooed Cynthia.

"Well, now I have got you, I am beginning to imagine all sorts of
terrible possibilities which might have parted us. I remember
thinking, when my foot slipped...."

"Oh, don't!" she murmured. "I can't bear to hear of that. Sometimes,
in Calais, I awoke screaming, and then I knew I had seen it in my
dreams.... There, you have disarranged my hat!... But I don't think
much of _your_ budget, anyhow; mine is a great deal more to the point.
My father told me this morning that he is sure he will feel very
lonely now. He never meant, he said, to put anyone in my dear
mother's place, but he wil