e not worth the paper they are
written on."

"I am not sure. He is very sensitive about matters of honour. Now a
receipt for money given to a lady looks to me very much like a debt of
honour. What happened in the eyes of the world? You lent him money which
he lost in speculation."

"No doubt," answered the Princess, willing to be convinced of any
absurdity that could help her to get back her money. "But when a man has
no means of paying a debt of honour----"

"He shoots himself," said Monsieur Leroy, completing the sentence.

"That would not help us. Besides, I should be very sorry if anything
happened to Guido."

"Of course!" cried Monsieur Leroy. "Not for worlds! But nothing need
happen to him. You have only to persuade him that the sole way to save
his honour is to marry an heiress, and he will marry at once, as a
matter of conscience. Unless something is done to move him, he will
not."

"But he is in love with the girl!"

"Enough to occupy him and amuse him. That is all. By-the-bye, where are
those receipts?"

"In the small strong-box, in the lower drawer of the writing table."

Monsieur Leroy found the papers, and transferred them to his
pocket-book, not yet sure how he could best turn them to account, but
quite certain that their proper use would reveal itself to him before
long.

"And besides," he concluded, "we can always make him sell the Andrea del
Sarto and the Raphael. Baumgarten thinks they are worth a good sum. You
know that he buys for the Berlin gallery, and the British Museum people
think everything of his opinion."

In this way the Princess and her favourite disposed of Guido and his
property; but he would not have been much surprised if he could have
heard their conversation. They were only saying what he had expected of
them as far back as the day when he had talked with Lamberti in the
garden of the Arcadians.

CHAPTER XII

It is not strange that Cecilia should have been much less disturbed than
Lamberti by what he had described to the doctor as a possession of the
devil, or a haunting. Men who have never been ailing in their lives
sometimes behave like frightened children if they fall ill, though the
ailment may not be very serious, whereas a hardened old invalid,
determined to make the best of life in spite of his ills, often laughs
himself into the belief that he can recover from the two or three mortal
diseases that have hold of him. Beari