u?"

"If a man loves," answered Frank, simply, "he feels it most when the
woman he loves is in affliction. And," he added, after a pause, "though
these debts are faults, kindness at this moment may give me the power
to cure forever both her faults and my own. I can raise this money by a
stroke of the pen! How?"

"On the Casino property."

Frank drew back.

"No other way?"

"Of course not. But I know your scruples; let us see if they can be
conciliated. You would marry Madame di Negra; she will have L20,000
on her wedding-day. Why not arrange that, out of this sum, your
anticipative charge on the Casino property be paid at once? Thus, in
truth, it will be but for a few weeks that the charge will exist. The
bond will remain locked in my desk; it can never come to your father's
know ledge, nor wound his feelings. And when you marry (if you will but
be prudent in the mean while), you will not owe a debt in the world."

Here the count suddenly started up.

"Mr. Hazeldean, I asked you to stay and aid us by your counsel; I see
now that counsel is unavailing. This blow on our House must fall! I
thank you, Sir,--I thank you. Farewell. Levy, come with me to my poor
sister, and prepare her for the worst."

"Count," said Frank, "hear me. My acquaintance with you is but slight,
but I have long known and--and esteemed your sister. Baron Levy has
suggested a mode in which I can have the honour and the happiness of
removing this temporary but painful embarrassment. I can advance the
money."

"No, no!" exclaimed Peschiera. "How can you suppose that I will hear of
such a proposition? Your youth and benevolence mislead and blind you.
Impossible, sir,--impossible! Why, even if I had no pride, no delicacy
of my own, my sister's fair fame--"

"Would suffer indeed," interrupted Levy, "if she were under such
obligation to any one but her affianced husband. Nor, whatever my regard
for you, Count, could I suffer my client, Mr. Hazeldean, to make this
advance upon any less valid security than that of the fortune to which
Madame di Negra is entitled."

"Ha!--is this indeed so? You are a suitor for my sister's hand, Mr.
Hazeldean?"

"But not at this moment,--not to owe her hand to the compulsion of
gratitude," answered gentleman Frank. "Gratitude! And you do not know
her heart, then? Do not know--" the count interrupted himself, and went
on after a pause. "Mr. Hazeldean, I need not say that we rank among
the first Houses in Europe.