une to you, Madame?"

"Of course it does!" exclaimed Sylvia.

"It frees me from the necessity of being a pensioner on my
brother-in-law," he said slowly, and Sylvia felt a little chill
of disappointment. Was that his only pleasure in his legacy?

"You will not play with _this_ money?" she said, in a low voice.

"It is no use my making a promise, especially to you, that I might not be
able to keep--"

He got up, and stood looking down at her.

"But I promise that I will not waste or risk this money if I can resist
the temptation to do so."

Sylvia smiled, though she felt more inclined to cry.

He seemed stung by her look.

"Do you wish me to give you my word of honour that I will not risk any of
this money at the tables?" he asked, almost in a whisper.

Sylvia's heart began to beat. Count Paul had become very pale. There was
a curious expression on his face--an expression of revolt, almost of
anger.

"Do you exact it?" he repeated, almost violently.

And Sylvia faltered out, "Could you keep your word if I did exact it?"

"Ah, you have learnt to know me too well!"

He walked away, leaving her full of perplexity and pain.

A few moments passed. They seemed very long moments to Sylvia Bailey.
Then Count Paul turned and came back.

He sat down, and made a great effort to behave as if nothing unusual or
memorable had passed between them.

"And has anything happened here?" he asked. "Is there any news of your
vanished friend?"

Sylvia shook her head gravely. The Polish woman's odd, and, to her,
inexplicable, conduct still hurt her almost as much as it had done at
first.

The Count leant forward, and speaking this time very seriously indeed, he
said, in a low voice:--

"I wish to say something to you, and I am now going to speak as frankly
as if you were--my sister. You are wrong to waste a moment of your time
in regretting Madame Wolsky. She is an unhappy woman, held tightly in the
paws of the tiger--Play. That is the truth, my friend! It is a pity you
ever met her, and I am glad she went away without doing you any further
mischief. It was bad enough of her to have brought you to Lacville, and
taught you to gamble. Had she stayed on, she would have tried in time to
make you go on with her to Monte Carlo."

He shook his head expressively

Sylvia looked at him with surprise. He had never spoken to her of Anna in
this way before. She hesitated, then said a little nervously,

"Tell me, did you ask Mad