ter. It is one which I
trust will bring me your true congratulations. Mrs. Bailey is about to do
me the honour of becoming my wife."

He waited a moment, then added very gravely, "I am giving her an
undertaking, a solemn promise by all I hold most sacred, to abandon
play--"

Chester felt a shock of amazement. How utterly mistaken, how blind he had
been! He had felt positively certain that Sylvia had refused Paul de
Virieu; and he had been angered by the suspicion, nay, by what he had
thought the sure knowledge, that the wise refusal had cost her pain.

But women are extraordinary creatures, and so, for the matter of that,
are Frenchmen--

Still, his feelings to the man sitting opposite to him had undergone a
complete change. He now liked--nay, he now respected--Paul de Virieu. But
for the Count, whom he had thought to be nothing more than an effeminate
dandy, a hopeless gambler, where would Sylvia be now? The unspoken answer
to this question gave Chester a horrible inward tremor.

He leant forward, and grasped Paul de Virieu's left hand.

"I do congratulate you," he said, simply and heartily; "you deserve your
great good fortune." Then, to Sylvia, he added quietly, "My dear, it is
to him you owe your life."

End of Project Gutenberg's The Chink in the Armour, by Marie Belloc Lowndes

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