"You promised to help me at any risk, in any difficulty, and now I am going to ask your aid."
"It is yours. My whole life is yours," he cried. She smiled, sadly.
"There are some things more valuable than life. Perhaps what I ask from you will cost you dear."
"I do not care in the least what it costs," he said.
"You are coming to dine with us; we do not dine this evening until eight. Come soon after six. I have a story to tell you."
"I will not fail," he replied. "Do not be anxious, Lady Lisle, you look distressed. Trust in me; far as human aid can go, mine is yours."
His clear blue eyes lingered on her perfect face, and again, for the second time in her life, the queen of coquettes felt something like pity for the man she was luring to his doom. She leaned back in the carriage after he was gone, with a most triumphant smile on her lips.
"What wonders a pretty face can work," she thought. "I feel quite safe, now that my troubles are to rest on his broad shoulders. How I should like to see that Jules trampled upon and crushed. My knight will save me."
She never remembered that he was the only son of his mother—a widow. She cared little that he was the head of a grand old race. She thought still less of his talents, his honest enthusiasm, his simplicity, except so far as it answered her purpose.