The girl saw his lips set and the glint in his eyes, and knew he meant what he said. She also saw his chivalrous respect for herself, and, being a young woman of keen perceptions, also surmised that the son of the ranker possessed certain qualities which were lacking in the man she was to marry. She was, as she had admitted, fond of Tony, but most of those who knew and liked him guessed that he was unstable and weak as water. Violet Wayne had, however, in spite of occasional misgivings, not quite realized that fact yet. “I want you to help him because you are his friend—and mine, but it would hurt him if you told him that I had asked you to; and I do not even know what the trouble is,” she said. “I have pledged myself; but if you have failed to discover it how can I expect to succeed?” Violet Wayne did not look at him this time. “There are some difficulties a man would rather tell his comrade than the woman who is to be his wife.” “I think, if I understand you aright, that you are completely and wholly mistaken. If Tony is in any difficulty, it will be his usual one, the want of money.” A tinge of color crept into the girl’s face. “Then you will lend it him and come to me. I have plenty.” She rose as she spoke, and Appleby long afterwards remembered the picture she made as she stood amidst the tall ferns with the faint warmth in her face and the vague anxiety in her eyes. She was tall, and held herself well, and once more he bent his head a trifle. “I will do what I can,” he said simply. Violet Wayne left him, but she had seen his face, and felt that whatever it cost him the man would redeem his pledge; while Appleby, who went outside to smoke, paced thoughtfully up and down the terrace. “If Tony has gone off the line in the usual direction he deserves to be shot,” he said. He went in by and by, and watched his comrade in the billiard room. Tony was good at most games, but that night he bungled over some of the simplest cannons, though Appleby remembered that he had shot remarkably well during the afternoon. Still, he expected no opportunity of speaking to him alone until the morning, and when the rest took up their candles retired to his room. He lay in a big chair thinking, when Tony came in and flung himself into another. Appleby noticed that his face was almost haggard. “Can you lend me ten pounds?” he said. “No,” said Appleby dryly. “I had to venture an odd stake now and then, and do not play billiards well, while I am now in possession of about three sovereigns over my railway fare home to‐morrow. What do you want the money for?” “I only want it until the bank at Darsley opens to‐morrow. This is my uncle’s house, of course, but I am, so to speak, running it for him, and I couldn’t well go round borrowing from the men I asked to stay with me.” “It seems to me that you have not answered my question.”