Adrienne accompanied her, and when she had helped her with her toilette and seen her comfortably in bed, she went back to the salon for a book which she had left there. To her surprise she found Guy still sitting by the fire, apparently lost in thought. He looked up when she came in, then got up from his chair. "Well, I must be going. Your pauvre tante," he said with a tender note in his tone. "She is her own worst enemy, did she but know it." "Oh," said Adrienne passionately, "we must do something, Cousin Guy. You seem half asleep, quite indifferent to the frauds of this wicked little man. I'd like to tell you something, but I have promised not. Aunt Cecily must be freed somehow from his clutches." "I again repeat that you can tell me little that I do not know. I suppose you are alluding to the mortgage he holds of this place, and of his resolve to foreclose as soon as possible." "You know, then? How did you discover it? You are quite wonderful." Guy very slowly and deliberately drew out a pocketbook from his coat pocket. "Here," he said, "are about twenty pages of his frauds, as you call them. I have them all verified. I have spared no trouble or time in the doing of it. The watch is the last item." "But oh, if you know, can't you relieve Aunt Cecily's mind? Is there no way of paying up the mortgage?" "Your aunt is what we may term difficile. Were I to pay off the mortgage to-day, and settle all her debts, she'd have a glorious time of contracting new ones, and of borrowing on the security of the Château afresh to-morrow. I honestly think that no one in this wide world could keep her out of debt. She's made that way. She can't help it." "It seems awful to me. Her brothers would be horrified. Poor Aunt Cecily. I do feel so sorry for her. Are you going to let the Château slip away from her?" "Ah! That requires consideration. Sometimes I think it would be best, for she would then settle down in her town flat and have no notary plaguing her life out." "But that would be allowing the wicked to prosper on stolen gains!" said Adrienne passionately. "And if you won't stop him, I will. I feel inclined to go off to his house at once, and confront Madame Bouverie. She said in my presence that the watch was for an American. I suppose that that bill for the farm had been already paid?" Guy turned over the pages. "At all events he had the money to settle it, as long ago as last November. I have the date and the amount." "But you mean to bring him to account, surely?" "Yes, sooner or later I think I shall." Then he smiled at her. "Justice is always slow," he said; "don't be impatient. I have learnt that to make haste means mistakes, and mistakes spell failure." Then Adrienne smiled up at him. Relief and a sense of confidence in him crept into her heart. "Good night," she said; "now I shan't have a flutter of despondency or fear for Aunt Cecily's future." She left the room, and slept peacefully that night.