"Believe me, I fully appreciate your hesitation; but that there may be no misunderstanding between us regarding this important matter, let me tell you something of my friend's present position. I ask you to accept my word for it, that he's not as yet bound himself to Miss Fitzgerald; but his high sense of honour may lead him to do so, if he knows nothing definite against her." "I see, and you want me to show him these letters?" and she took a little packet from her bosom. "No, I wouldn't subject you to such a trying ordeal. I ask you to let me show the letters to him. Remember that you've told him that you have them." "Yes," she said, after a moment's hesitation. "I think you're right. You assure me that he does not love her, and that there's positive danger that he may marry her from a sense of duty." "I assure you that such is the case." "Then take them," she said, giving him the letters; "but promise me that no one besides yourselves shall see them, and that they shall be safely returned to me by to-morrow." "I promise," he replied, "and take my assurance that in doing this you've more than repaid him for any services he may have done you." "You cannot persuade me to believe that; but I'm thankful to help where I'm able, though it be only a little, and I am even more thankful that he has such a strong champion in you." Kent-Lauriston took her extended hand. "Thank you," he said heartily. "Stanley's a good fellow; too good and too unsophisticated for the people he's thrown with, and I'm going to save him from himself if I can, both now and in the future." She looked up at him with a wistful light in her eyes, saying: "Perhaps you'll be wishing to save him from me--who've already one husband too many." "I don't know," replied Kent-Lauriston, with an English bluntness, of which he was not often culpable. She laughed merrily, answering: "I hope you'll do so, if ever I give you cause." "Madame," he returned, "what can I do? You've disarmed me, even before the first skirmish." * * * * *