, that she
entertained a houseful of guests, and was therefore well protected by
her friends. Otherwise he would try to force an interview under cover
of night.

These briefly indicated facts of the case, so appalling to the unhappy
Countess, were on the other hand eminently satisfactory to M. Paul de
Roustache. To be plain, they meant money, either from the Countess or
from the Count. To Paul's mind they seemed to mean--well, say, fifty
thousand francs--that twenty of his returned, and thirty as a solatium
for the trifling with his affections of which he proposed to maintain
that the Countess had been guilty. The Baroness von Englebaden's
diamonds had gone the way and served the purposes to which family
diamonds seem at some time or other to be predestined: and Paul was
very hard up. The Countess must be very frightened, the Count was very
proud. The situation was certainly worth fifty thousand francs to Paul
de Roustache. Sitting outside the inn, smoking his cigar, on the
morning after his encounter in the garden, he thought over all this;
and he was glad that he had not let his anger at the Count's insolence
run away with his discretion, the insolence would make his revenge all
the sweeter when he put his hand, either directly or indirectly, into
the Count's pocket and exacted compensation to the tune of fifty
thousand francs.

Buried in these thoughts--in the course of which it is interesting to
observe that he did not realise his own iniquity--he failed to notice
that Monsieur Guillaume had sat down beside him and, like himself, was
gazing across the valley towards the Castle. He started to find the
old fellow at his elbow; he started still more when he was addressed by
his name. "You know my name?" he exclaimed, with more perturbation
than a stranger's knowledge of that fact about him should excite in an
honest man.

"It's my business to know people."

"I don't know you."

"That also is my business," smiled M. Guillaume. "But in this case we
will not be too business-like. I will waive my advantage, M. de
Roustache."

"You called yourself Guillaume," said Paul with a suspicious glance.

"I was inviting you to intimacy. My name is Guillaume--Guillaume
Sevier, at your service."

"Sevier? The--?"

"Precisely. Don't be uneasy. My business is not with you." He
touched his arm. "Your reasons for a midnight walk are nothing to me;
young men take these fancies, and--well, the innkeeper says th