Page:Belloc Lowndes--The chink in the armour.djvu/344

334 A passion of pity, of protective tenderness, filled his heart, and suddenly lifted him to a higher region than that in which he had hitherto been content to dwell.

"You must not say that, ma chérie," he whispered, laying his cheek to hers as tenderly as he would have caressed a child, "it would be too cruel to the living, to those who love you—who adore you."

Then he raised his head, and, in a very different tone, he exclaimed,

"Do not be afraid, Mr. Chester, those infamous people shall not be allowed to escape! Poor Madame Wolsky shall surely be avenged. But Mrs. Bailey will not be asked to make any statement, except in writing—in what you in England call an affidavit. You do not realise, although you doubtless know, what our legal procedure is like. Not even in order to secure the guillotine for Madame Wachner and her Fritz would I expose Mrs. Bailey to the ordeal of our French witness-box."

"And how will it be possible to avoid it?" asked Chester, in a low voice.

Paul de Virieu hesitated, then, leaning forward and holding Sylvia still more closely and protectively to him, he said very deliberately the fateful words he had never thought to say,

"I have an announcement to make to you, Mr. Chester. 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"