"And how will it be possible to avoid it?" asked Chester, in a low voice.
Paul de Virieu hesitated, then, leaning forward and holding Sylvia still more closely and protectively to him, he said very deliberately the fateful words he had never thought to say,
"I have an announcement to make to you, Mr. Chester. It is one which I trust will bring me your true congratulations. Mrs. Bailey is about to do me the honour of becoming my wife."
He waited a moment, then added very gravely, "I am giving her an undertaking, a solemn promise by all I hold most sacred, to abandon play—"
Chester felt a shock of amazement. How utterly mistaken, how blind he had been! He had felt positively certain that Sylvia had refused Paul de Virieu; and he had been angered by the suspicion, nay, by what he had thought the sure knowledge, that the wise refusal had cost her pain.
But women are extraordinary creatures, and so, for the matter of that, are Frenchmen—
Still, his feelings to the man sitting opposite to him had undergone a complete change. He now liked—nay, he now respected—Paul de Virieu. But for the Count, whom he had thought to be nothing more than an effeminate dandy, a hopeless gambler, where would Sylvia be now? The unspoken answer to this question gave Chester a horrible inward tremor.
He leant forward, and grasped Paul de Virieu's left hand.
"I do congratulate you," he said, simply and heartily; "you deserve your great good fortune." Then, to Sylvia, he added quietly, "My dear, it is to him you owe your life."