“What’s the good! Better not.” He tore them up also. Another--from his uncle. It was brief: You’ve made a sweet mess of it, Cadet. It’s in all the papers to-day. Meyerbeer telegraphed it to New York and London. I’ll probably come down to see you. I want to finish my picture on the site of the old City of Ys, there at Point du Raz. Your girl can pose with you. I’ll do all I can to clear the thing up. But a British M.P.--that’s a tough pill for Clapham! Gaston’s foot tapped the floor angrily. He scattered the pieces of the letter at his feet. Now for the newspapers. He opened Le Petit Journal, Coil Blas, Galignani, and the New York Tom-Tom, one by one. Yes, it was there, with pictures of himself and Andree. A screaming sensation. Extracts, too, from the English papers by telegram. He read them all unflinchingly. There was one paragraph which he did not understand: There was a previous friend of the lady, unknown to the public, called Zoug-Zoug. He remembered that day at the Hotel St. Malo! Well, the bolt was shot: the worst was over. Quid refert? Justify himself? Certainly, to all but Delia Gasgoyne. Thousands of men did the same--did it in cold blood, without one honest feeling. He did it, at least under a powerful influence. He could not help but smile now at the thought of how he had filled both sides of the equation. On his father’s side, bringing down the mad record from Naseby; on his mother’s, true to the heathen, by following his impulses--sacred to primitive man, justified by spear, arrow, and a strong arm. Why sheet home this as a scandal? How did they--the libellers--know but that he had married the girl? Exactly. He would see to that. He would play his game with open sincerity now. He could have wished secrecy for Delia Gasgoyne, and for his grandfather and grandmother,--he was not wilfully brutal,--but otherwise he had no shame at all; he would stand openly for his right. Better one honest passion than a life of deception and miserable compromise. A British M.P.?--He had thrown away his reputation, said the papers. By this? The girl was no man’s wife, he was no woman’s husband!