The English lawyer thought the remark too obvious to answer.  Of course Lacville was a queer place—­to put it plainly, little better than a gambling hell.  He knew that well enough!  But it was rather strange to hear the Comte de Virieu saying so—­a real case, if ever there was one, of Satan rebuking sin.

So at last he answered, irritably, “Of course it is!  I can’t think what made Mrs. Bailey go there in the first instance.”  His mind was full of Sylvia.  He seemed to go on speaking of her against his will.

“Her going to Lacville was a mere accident,” explained Paul de Virieu, quickly.  “She was brought there by the Polish lady, Madame Wolsky, of whom you must have heard her speak, whom she met in an hotel in Paris, and who disappeared so mysteriously.  It is not a place for a young lady to be at by herself.”

Bill Chester tilted back the chair on which he was sitting.  Once more he asked himself what on earth the fellow was driving at?  Were these remarks a preliminary to the Count’s saying that he was not going to Switzerland after all—­that he was going back to Lacville in order to take care of Sylvia.

Quite suddenly the young Englishman felt shaken by a very primitive and, till these last few days, a very unfamiliar feeling—­that of jealousy.

Damn it—­he wouldn’t have that.  Of course he was no longer in love with Sylvia Bailey, but he was her trustee and lifelong friend.  It was his duty to prevent her making a fool of herself, either by gambling away her money—­the good money the late George Bailey had toiled so hard to acquire—­or, what would be ever so much worse, by making some wretched marriage to a foreign adventurer.

He stared suspiciously at his companion.  Was it likely that a real count—­the French equivalent to an English earl—­would lead the sort of life this man, Paul de Virieu, was leading, and in a place like Lacville?

“If you really feel like that, I think I’d better give up my trip to Switzerland, and go back to Lacville to-morrow morning.”

He stared hard at the Count, and noted with sarcastic amusement the other’s appearance—­so foppish, so effeminate to English eyes; particularly did he gaze with scorn at the Count’s yellow silk socks, which matched his lemon-coloured tie and silk pocket handkerchief.  Fancy starting for a long night journey in such a “get-up.”  Well!  Perhaps women liked that sort of thing, but he would never have thought Sylvia Bailey to be that sort of woman.

A change came over Paul de Virieu’s face.  There was unmistakable relief—­nay, more—­even joy in the voice with which the Frenchman answered,

“That is excellent!  That is quite right!  That is first-rate!  Yes, yes, Mr. Chester, you go back to Lacville and bring her away.  It is not right that Mrs. Bailey should be by herself there.  It may seem absurd to you, but, believe me, Lacville is not a safe spot in which to leave an unprotected woman.  She has not one single friend, not a person to whom she could turn to for advice,—­excepting, of course, the excellent Polperro himself, and he naturally desires to keep his profitable client.”