“This place is pleasantly cool and green, but I am not sure that is why we are here,” he said. “In any case, I am glad, because I am going away to‐morrow, and wished to thank you for your graciousness to me. I am, as, of course, you know, an outsider here, and you have in several tactful ways made my stay pleasant to me.” Violet Wayne looked at him with big calm eyes, but made no disclaimer. “You are a relative of Godfrey Palliser!” “A distant one; but my mother married a penniless army captain, and a ranker. He had won his commission by worth and valor, but that was no reason why the Pallisers should hold out a hand to him.” Violet Wayne nodded gravely. “Still, Godfrey Palliser sent you to school with Tony. You were always good friends, though I think he told me you were born abroad?” “Yes,” said Appleby, “he was my first English friend. My father died at Gibraltar, and my mother stayed on there until she followed him. She did not want to forget him, and living is cheap in Spain. Tony and I fought our way through three schools together.” “I think it was you who fought for him,” said Miss Wayne, with a little smile. “He has, I may mention, told me a good deal about you, and that is one reason why I feel that I could trust you. You would, I believe, respect any confidence a woman reposed in you.” Appleby flushed a trifle. “I fancy I told you I was grateful,” he said. “The little kindnesses you have shown me mean so much to a man whose life is what mine has been. One gets very few of them, you see.” “Still,” the girl said quietly, “when we first met you were not quite sure of me.” The color showed a trifle plainer in Appleby’s forehead, for he had not had the advantages of his companion’s training, but he looked at her with steady eyes. “You can set that down as due to the pride of the class I sprang from on one side—I feared a rebuff which would have hurt me. I was, you will remember, Tony’s friend long before he met you!” “And now?” Appleby made her a little inclination. “Tony,” he said, “is a very good fellow, as men go, but I do not know that he is good enough for you.” Violet Wayne smiled and then sat still, looking at him with a curious softness in her eyes. “He is in trouble,” she said simply, “and I am fond of him. That is why I have led you on.” Appleby rose, and there was a suggestion of resolute alertness in his attitude, though his head was bent. “Don’t ask me for any help that I can give. Let me offer it,” he said. “I don’t know that I am expressing myself fittingly, but it is not only because you will be Tony’s wife that you can command whatever little I can do.”