It is a long, bothersome quest. The young man does not come home at noon, so he waits awhile and then sets off in search of him, making two calls just after he has left the places, but at last success crowns his efforts. But Lindmeyer cannot come up the next day. There is an expert trial of some machinery for which he is engaged at ten. It may take two or three hours, it may hold him all day. "Come back with me, then," says Floyd. "You can go over a little this evening, and keep it in your mind, then you can return when you are through. I want the matter settled, and the man's life hangs on a mere thread." Lindmeyer consents, and they travel up together. The day is at its close as they reach the little nest on the cliffs, but Denise gives Grandon a more than friendly welcome. "He is better," she says. "He will be so glad. Go right up to him." He does not look better, but his voice is stronger. "And I had such a nice sleep this afternoon," he says. "I feel quite like a new being, and able to entertain your friend. How good you are to a dying man, Mr. Grandon." Quite in the evening Floyd leaves them together and returns home. Cecil has cried herself to sleep in the vain effort to keep awake. Madame Lepelletier assumes her most beguiling smile, and counts on an hour or two, but he excuses himself briefly. The letter to Eugene must be written this evening, though he knows as well what the result will be as if he held the answer in his hand. A little later he lights a cigar and muses over the young girl whose fate has thus strangely been placed in his hands. He is not anxious to marry her to Eugene; but, oh, the horrible sacrifice of such a man as Wilmarth! No, it shall not be. CHAPTER VII. Love is forever and divinely new.--MONTGOMERY. Floyd Grandon, who always sleeps the sleep of the just, or the traveller who learns to sleep under all circumstances, is restless and tormented with vague dreams. Some danger or vexation seems to menace him continually. He rises unrefreshed, and Cecil holds a dainty baby grudge against him for his neglect of yesterday, and makes herself undeniably tormenting, until she is sent away in disgrace. Madame Lepelletier rather rejoices in this sign. "You are not always to rule him, little lady," she thinks in her inmost soul. He explains briefly to his mother that Mr. St. Vincent is very ill, and that urgent business demands his attention, and is off again. Somehow he fears Lindmeyer's verdict very much. If there should be some mistake, some weak point, the result must be failure for all concerned. Would Wilmarth still desire to marry Miss St. Vincent? he wonders. Denise receives him with a smile in her bright eyes. "He is very comfortable," she says, and Grandon takes heart. Lindmeyer is waiting for him. His rather intense face is hopeful; and Grandon's spirits go up.