nfinite, such bewilderingly protean variations. So her next move,
one which Paul de Virieu, smiling behind his moustache, foresaw--was to
turn away from the window.

She ran down the broad shallow staircase very quickly, for it had
occurred to her that the Count, taking her at her word, might leave the
garden, and, sauntering off to the Casino, lose his money--for whatever
he might be in love, Count Paul was exceedingly unlucky at cards! And
lately she had begun to think that she was gradually weaning her friend
from what she knew to be in his case, whatever it was in hers, and in
that of many of the people about them, the terrible vice of gambling.

When, a little breathless, she joined him in the garden, she found that
he had already taken two rocking-chairs into a shady corner which was out
of sight of the white villa and of its inquisitive windows.

"Something very serious has happened," said Count Paul slowly.

He took both her hands in his and looked down into her face. With
surprise and concern she saw that his eyelids were red. Was it possible
that Count Paul had been crying? He almost looked as if he had.

The idea of a grown-up man allowing himself to give way to emotion of
that sort would have seemed absurd to Sylvia a short time ago, but
somehow the thought that Paul de Virieu had shed tears made her feel
extraordinarily moved.

"What is the matter?" she asked anxiously. "Has anything happened to your
sister?"

"Thank God--no!" he answered hastily. "But something else, something
which was to be expected, but which I did not expect, has happened--"

And then, very gravely, and at last releasing her hands, he added, "My
kind godmother, the little Marquise you met last week, died last night."

Sylvia felt the sudden sense of surprise, almost of discomfiture, the
young always feel in the neighbourhood of death.

"How dreadful! She seemed quite well when we saw her that day--"

She could still hear echoing in her ears the old lady's half-mocking but
kindly compliments.

"Ah! but she was very, very old--over ninety! Why, she was supposed to
be aged when she became my godmother thirty odd years ago!"

He waited a moment, and then added, quietly, "She has left me in her will
two hundred thousand francs."

"Oh, I _am_ glad!"

Sylvia stretched out both hands impulsively, and the Comte de Virieu took
first one and then the other and raised them to his lips.

"Eight thousand pounds? Does it seem a fort