ly in earnest. I saw that I must answer her without
reserve; and I was a little afraid of being myself open to a suspicion of
vanity, if I mentioned the distrust which I had innocently excited in the
mind of my new acquaintance. In this state of embarrassment I took a
young man's way out of the difficulty, and spoke lightly of a serious
thing.

"I became acquainted with your deaf Lodger, Cristel, under ridiculous
circumstances. He saw us talking last night, and did me the honor to be
jealous of me."

I had expected to see her blush. To my surprise she turned pale, and
vehemently remonstrated.

"Don't laugh, sir! There's nothing to be amused at in what you have just
told me. You didn't go into his room last night? Oh, what made you do
that!"

I described his successful appeal to my compassion--not very willingly,
for it made me look (as I thought) like a weak person. Little by little,
she extracted from me the rest: how he objected to find a young man,
especially in my social position, talking to Cristel; how he insisted on
my respecting his claims, and engaging not to see her again; how, when I
refused to do this, he gave me his confession to read, so that I might
find out what a formidable man I was setting at defiance; how I had not
been in the least alarmed, and had treated him (as Cristel had just
heard) on the footing of a perfect stranger.

"There's the whole story," I concluded. "Like a scene in a play, isn't
it?"

She protested once more against the light tone that I persisted in
assuming.

"I tell you again, sir, this is no laughing matter. You have roused his
jealousy. You had better have roused the fury of a wild beast. Knowing
what you know of him, why did you stay here, when he came in? And, oh,
why did I humiliate him in your presence? Leave us, Mr. Gerard--pray,
pray leave us, and don't come near this place again till father has got
rid of him."

Did she think I was to be so easily frightened as that? My sense of my
own importance was up in arms at the bare suspicion of it!

"My dear child," I said grandly, "do you really suppose I am afraid of
that poor wretch? Am I to give up the pleasure of seeing you, because a
mad fellow is simple enough to think you will marry him? Absurd,
Cristel--absurd!"

The poor girl wrung her hands in despair.

"Oh, sir, don't distress me by talking in that way! Do please remember
who you are, and who I am. If I was the miserable means of your coming to
any har