ke the
money!"

"That's of no consequence. He didn't get away with much anyway," said
young Miller. "But he would have if you hadn't been here. If ever I can
do you a return service, just ask."

Aristide went out to look for the Erringtons. But they were not to be
found. It was only late in the afternoon that he met Mrs. Errington in
the hall of the hotel. He dragged her into a corner and in his
impulsive fashion told her everything. She listened white faced, in
great distress.

"My daughter's engaged to him. I've only just learned," she faltered.

"Engaged? _Sacrebleu!_ Ah, _le goujat!_"--for the second he was
desperately, furiously, jealously in love with Betty Errington. "_Ah, le
sale type! Voyons!_ This engagement must be broken off. At once! You are
her mother."

"She will hear of nothing against him."

"You will tell her this. It will be a blow; but----"

Mrs. Errington twisted a handkerchief between helpless fingers. "Betty
is infatuated. She won't believe it." She regarded him piteously. "Oh,
Monsieur Pujol, what can I do? You see she has an independent fortune
and is over twenty-one. I am powerless."

"I will meet his two friends," exclaimed Aristide magnificently--"and I
will kill him. _Voila!_"

"Oh, a duel? No! How awful!" cried the mild lady horror-stricken.

He thrust his cane dramatically through a sheet of a newspaper, which he
had caught up from a table. "I will run him through the body like
that"--Aristide had never handled a foil in his life--"and when he is
dead, your beautiful daughter will thank me for having saved her from
such an execrable fellow."

"But you mustn't fight. It would be too dreadful. Is there no other
way?"

"You must consult first with your daughter," said Aristide.

He dined in the hotel with Eugene Miller. Neither the Erringtons nor the
Comte de Lussigny were anywhere to be seen. After dinner, however, he
found the elder lady waiting for him in the hall. They walked out into
the quiet of the garden. She had been too upset to dine, she explained,
having had a terrible scene with Betty. Nothing but absolute proofs of
her lover's iniquity would satisfy her. The world was full of slanderous
tongues; the noblest and purest did not escape. For herself, she had
never been comfortable with the Comte de Lussigny. She had noticed too
that he had always avoided the best French people in hotels. She would
give anything to save her daughter. She wept.

"And the unhappy gir