“Ah! my boy,” rejoins the painter, “you have too difficult a game to play to be over scrupulous. You must know how you stand with this lady before you attempt to see her again.” Then he horrifies Guy, for he says: “You have powerful rivals; General Niorcarmesis looked upon not altogether unfavorably by the lady’s father, in whose confidence that officer stands very high.” “A rival?” falters Guy. “A rival? A host of rivals! Do you pay your beautiful inamorata so poor a compliment as to think she has charmed no other man than you? Every one is bowing down to the beauty and the wit of the Countess Hermoine de Alva—generals and nobles.” Then he continues commandingly: “You must open this letter. The game you are playing forces you to use every card. It is apparently not a confidential communication, and must apply to you, for she told you to deliver it with your own hand.” While he is speaking, and before Guy can interpose, Oliver has rapidly lighted a taper, passed the letter over it with the deft hand of one accustomed to such business, and is presenting it, seal removed, open to the inspection of the Englishman. “Read it you must,” he says. “Your life might be the forfeit of too strained an honor. Read it! Some day you may be compelled from the exigencies of the case to deliver this to Alva. In your position you should know what it contains. Read it, or I have no further communication with you.” “Why not?” mutters Guy, who, though desperately anxious to see the handwriting of his sweetheart, still holds out. “Because,” says the painter, solemnly, “this is a game in which both you and I have put up our lives as the stake; and I play everything in my hand. You must do the same, for my sake as well as yours. If I communicate with you, if I am seen in your company, and you are arrested, perhaps I fall with you. Besides, we owe it to our countries to use every weapon that God throws into our hands. READ!” While saying this he has opened the delicately scented billet, which has only been held together by its seal, and is suspending it before the eyes of the Englishman, which become radiant with hope as they read this short but pithy note in the very prettiest of feminine handwriting: “Dear Papa: “Please make the bearer of this, Captain Guido, of Romero’s foot, my rescuer from the Beggars of the Sea (though he is too modest to give me any other name) a Colonel as soon as possible, and then give him a chance to make himself a General, and oblige, your loving Hermoine.” Rapture and pride are too great in the Englishman for him to avoid showing this note to his friend and mentor.