‘But, Sir Geoffrey,’ he continued brokenly, ‘you will not breathe a word of this to a soul! In a moment of passion, I have been led to divulge the master-passion of my life. Promise me you will forget it from this hour;’ and saying these words, he stretched out a hand trembling with suppressed emotion to his host and friend. A good actor was lost to an admiring world here. ‘But bless me!’ Sir Geoffrey exclaimed, taken aback by this display, and, sooth to say, somewhat irritated that the necessary explanation must come from him after all, ‘I _want_ you to marry the girl.’ ‘Is it possible, or am I dreaming?’ Le Gautier cried in a delirium of rapture. ‘Do I hear aright? Oh, say these words again!’ Le Gautier was slightly overdoing the thing now, and Sir Geoffrey knew it. ‘I mean what I say,’ he added coldly. ‘You are the man for Enid.’ ‘Who is talking about Enid?’ asked a fresh clear voice at that moment, as the subject of discourse, accompanied by her escort, glided into the room. Le Gautier, in love as he was, thought he had never seen her look so fair as she did then, her face slightly tinged with colour, her eyes all aglow with pleasurable excitement. For a moment the conspirators were abashed, and it took all the Frenchman’s cool equitable nerve to solve and explain what appeared to be a truly awkward question. ‘When we are not with the rose, we love to talk of her,’ he replied with one of these bold glances for which Maxwell longed to kick him on the spot.—‘I trust you have spent a pleasant morning?’ Enid answered as coldly as the dictates of breeding would allow. The man’s florid compliments were odious to her, and his presence oppressive. Le Gautier, accustomed to read men and faces like open books, did not fail to note this. ‘I have important news,’ he whispered to Maxwell, after he had made his graceful adieux to Enid and his host. ‘I want to say a few words to you, if you happen to be walking my way.’ Maxwell answered with studious politeness. ‘With pleasure,’ he said. ‘If you will allow me, I will drive you in my cab.’ Enid’s quick ears caught the whisper, and a feeling of approaching evil seemed to come over her—a cloud passed over the sun, and, to her fancy, for a moment Le Gautier looked like Mephistopheles tempting Faust. As the two men passed out, she called Maxwell back. ‘Be careful,’ she urged. ‘Beware of that man; he will do you a mischief.’ Maxwell smiled down in the pretty fearful face tenderly. ‘All right, little woman,’ he answered carelessly. ‘I shall take care. He is not likely to do any harm to me.’ NAPOLEON IN TOR BAY.