“It is true, sir,” she insisted, suspecting him of irony. “When I was sick on that yacht—”

He raised one thin hand. “I accept your reading of his lordship’s true nature, Miss Challoner. Spare me a recital of your sufferings at sea, I beg of you.”

She smiled. “They were excessively painful, sir, I assure you. But we arrived at length at Dieppe, where his lordship had planned to spend the night. We dined. His lordship had, I think, been drinking aboard the yacht. He was in an ugly mood, and I was compelled, in the end, to protect my virtue in a somewhat drastic manner.”

The gentleman opened his snuff-box, and took a pinch delicately. “If you succeeded in protecting your virtue, my dear Miss Challoner, I can readily believe—knowing his lordship—that your methods must have been exceedingly drastic. You perceive me positively agog with curiosity.”

“I shot him,” she said bluntly.

The hand that was raising the pinch of snuff to one nostril was checked for a brief moment. “Accept my compliments,” said the gentleman calmly, and inhaled the snuff.

“It was not a very bad wound,” she told him. “But it sobered him, you see.”

“I imagine that it might do so,” he conceded.

“Yes, sir. He began to realize that I was not—not vulgarly coy, but in deadly earnest.”

“Did he indeed? A gentleman of intuition, I perceive.”

Miss Challoner said with dignity: “You laugh, sir, but it was not very amusing at the time.”

The gentleman bowed. “I beg your pardon,” he said solemnly. “What happened next?”

“His lordship insisted that I should tell him all that I have told you. When he had heard me out he said that there was. only one thing to be done. I must marry him at once.”

The keen eyes lifted from the contemplation of the enamelled snuff-box, and were suddenly intent. “We have reached the point where you interest me extraordinarily,” said that smooth voice. “Proceed, Miss Challoner.”

She looked down at her clasped hands. “I could not consent to so wild a scheme, sir, of course. I was forced to decline his lordship’s offer.”

“I do not think I am a fool,” said the gentleman pensively. “But although I can sympathize with your reluctance to marry so dissolute a gentleman as Lord Vidal, your predicament was such that I do not immediately perceive what forced you to decline.”

“The knowledge, sir, that Lord Vidal did not care for me,” answered Miss Challoner in a low voice. “The knowledge also that in marrying me he would be making a—a deplorable mésalliance. I do not desire to discuss that, if you please. I requested his lordship—since I could hardly return to England—to escort me to Paris, where I hoped to find some genteel employment, such as I described to you.”

The quizzing-glass was raised again. “You appear to have confronted your somewhat unnerving situation with remarkable equanimity, Miss Challoner.”

She shrugged. “What else could I do, sir? Vapours would not have helped me. Besides, I had his lordship sick on my hands with some slight inflammation of the wound I had given him, and as he was bent on doing a number of imprudent things I had too much to do in preventing him to think very much of my own troubles.”

“From my brief acquaintance with you, Miss Challoner, I feel moderately convinced that you did prevent Lord Vidal’s imprudence.”

“Oh yes,” she answered. “He is quite easy to manage, if—if one only knows the way.”

The quizzing-glass fell. “His lordship’s parents should be anxious to meet you,” said the gentleman.

Her smile was twisted. “I am afraid not, sir. I do not know whether you are acquainted with his grace of Avon?”

“Intimately,” he said, with the ghost of a laugh.

“Oh, then—” She broke off. “In short, sir, I refused Lord Vidal’s offer, and we—”

“But were you not about to make some observation concerning his grace of Avon?” he interposed urbanely.

“I was, sir, but if you are intimate with him I will refrain.”

“Pray do not. In what monstrous light has this gentleman appeared to you?”

“I have never set eyes on him, sir. I only judge him by what I have heard, and by things that Lord Vidal has from time to time let fall. I suppose him to be a man of few morals and no heart. He seems to me a sinister person, and is, I believe, quite unscrupulous in attaining his ends.”

The gentleman appeared to be amused. “I am far from contradicting you, Miss Challoner, but may I inquire whether you culled this masterly description from Lord Vidal’s lips?”

“If you mean, did Lord Vidal tell me so, no, sir, he did not. Lord Vidal is, I think, attached to his grace. I go by common report, a little, and by the very lively fear of her uncle evinced by my friend Miss Marling, His lordship merely gave me to understand that his father was uncannily omniscient, and had a habit of succeeding in all his objects.”

“I am relieved to hear that Lord Vidal has so much respect for his grace,” remarked the gentleman.

“Are you, sir? Well, having formed this opinion, I could not but feel that so far from desiring to meet me, his grace would very likely disinherit Lord Vidal if his lordship married me.”

“You draw an amiable portrait, Miss Challoner, but I can assure you that whatever his grace’s feelings might be he would never follow so distressingly crude a course.”

“Would he not, sir? I did not know, but I am very sure he would not countenance his son’s marriage to a nobody. To continue: Lord Vidal, discovering that I was once at school with his cousin, Miss Marling, brought me to Paris, and consigned me to her care until such time as he could find an English divine to marry me. Miss Marling was secretly betrothed to a certain Mr. Comyn, but their betrothal was broken off—irrevocably, as I thought—and Mr. Comyn, being a gentleman of great chivalry, offered his hand to me, to enable me to escape from Lord Vidal. Though I blush to confess it, sir, such was my desperate need, that I consented to elope with Mr. Comyn to Dijon where Lord Vidal had found an English divine. Unfortunately, Mr. Comyn thought it incumbent on him to leave a note for his lordship, apprising him of our intention to wed. The result was, sir, that Lord Vidal, accompanied by Miss Marling, overtook us at Dijon before the knot was tied. There was a painful scene. Mr. Comyn, desiring to protect me from his lordship’s—coercion—announced that we were man and wife. Lord Vidal, with the object of making me a widow, tried to choke the life out of Mr. Comyn. In which I think he would probably have succeeded,” she added, “had there not been a jug of water at hand. I threw it over them both, and my lord let Mr. Comyn go.”

“A jug of water!” he repeated. His shoulders shook slightly. “But continue, Miss Challoner!”

“After that,” she said matter-of-factly, “they fought with their swords.”

“How very enlivening! Where did they fight with—er—their swords?”

“In the private parlour. Juliana had hysterics.”

“It is quite unnecessary to tell me that,” he assured her. “What I should like to know is what was done with Mr. Comyn’s body?”

“He wasn’t killed, sir. No one was hurt at all.”

“You amaze me,” said the gentleman.

“Mr. Comyn would have been killed,” Miss Challoner admitted, “but I stopped it. I thought it was time.”

The gentleman surveyed her with distinct admiration, not untouched by amusement. “Of course I should have known that you stopped it,” he said. “What means did you employ this time?”

“Rather rough-and-ready ones, sir. I tried to catch the blades in a coat.”

“I am disappointed,” he said. “I had imagined a far neater scheme. Were you hurt?”

“A little, sir. His lordship’s sword scratched me, no more. That ended the duel. Mr. Comyn said that he must tell Lord Vidal the truth about us, and feeling myself somewhat shaken, I retired to my chamber.” She paused, and drew a long breath. “Before I had reached the stairway, his lordship’s mother arrived, accompanied, I think, by Lord Rupert Alastair. They did not see me, but I—I heard her grace—say to Lord Vidal—that he must not marry me, and I—I got into the diligence for Paris, which was at the door, and—and came here. That is all my story, sir.”

A silence fell. Conscious of her host’s scrutiny, Miss Challoner averted her face. After a moment she said: “Having heard me, sir, do you still feel inclined to assist me out of my difficulty?”

“I am doubly anxious to assist you, Miss Challoner. But since you have been so frank, I must request you to be yet franker. Am I right in assuming that you love Lord Vidal?”

“Too well to marry him, sir,” said Miss Challoner in a subdued voice.

“May I aesk why ‘too well’?”

She raised her head. “How could I, sir, knowing that his parents would do anything in their power to prevent such a marriage? How could I let him stoop to my level? I am not of his world, though Sir Giles Challoner is my grandfather. Please do not let us speak any more of this! My mind is made up; my one dread now is that his lordship may pursue me to this place.”

“I can safely promise you, my dear, that whUe you remain under my protection you are in no danger from Lord Vidal.”

The words were hardly out of his mouth when the sound of voices outside came to Miss Challoner’s ears. She grew very white, and half rose from her chair. “Sir, he has come!” she said, trying to be calm.

“So I apprehend,” he said imperturbably.

Miss Challoner cast a frightened look round. “You promised I should be safe, sir. Will you bide me somewhere? We must be quick!”

“I still promise that you shall be safe,” he replied. “But I shall certainly not hide you. Let me recommend you to be seated once more ... Come in!”