‘If _not_, De Courcelles, we must part. I am sorry to say it, but I shall consider your refusal (or Lizzie’s) as a proof that the less you are about the White House in the future the better. Not the slightest taint--not even the bare suspicion of one--must rest on the fair name of the future Lady Johnstone.’ ‘I understand you, Mr Courtney, and I will consider your proposal. How soon do you expect to get my answer?’ ‘Not until you are quite prepared to give it me. You have plenty of time before you. My wife and daughter will be away on the hills for a month, and I have no wish to part with an old friend in such a hurry. Think of it well, De Courcelles. I will look over any of the little derelictions of duty to which I have alluded, in consideration of the disappointment which you must have suffered; but my decision is final with regard to Miss Fellows. You must either marry her, or leave my service.’ De Courcelles left the planter’s presence grinding his teeth with rage. He had burned, while listening to his talk about his daughter’s marriage and future prospects, to tell him to his face that Maraquita was, to all intents and purposes, _his_ wife, and the mother of the child at the bungalow. But he dared not! He was afraid not only of the planter but of the negro population, if such a story got wind in the plantation. Revenge is sometimes very swift and sure in the West Indies, especially when the natives are in a state of insubordination. Besides, he would gain nothing by such an admission. It would not give him back Maraquita--faithless, perjured Maraquita, who, having slipped from his grasp into the arms of the Governor of San Diego, had instigated her parents, by a tissue of falsehoods, to dismiss him summarily from Beauregard. And it would have robbed him of the hope of revenge--a hope sweeter to a Spanish Creole even than love. As Henri de Courcelles thought of it, his hand tightened over the stiletto he always carried in his belt. Banishment from Beauregard would mean to sit down for the remainder of his life under this bitter wrong, without the satisfaction of feeling he had avenged it. At all hazards he must remain near this false love of his. She should never feel secure from him. He would appear before her in her most triumphant moments, and make her tremble with the fear that he was about to accuse her openly of her secret crime. Maraquita Courtney should never know another peaceful moment, whilst he lived to terrify her. But the opportunity depended on his marrying Lizzie Fellows. Well, if it must be so, it must be so. Henri de Courcelles, strolling down the path between the rows of coffee trees, and caressing his handsome moustaches as he went, seemed to have no doubt that he had but to ask to obtain. The conceit of men, where women are concerned, knows no bounds. Every woman, according to their creed, is only too ready to fly into their arms. The good old days when knights were not considered worthy to ask