In matters of love, or rather, of matrimony--which is not quite the same thing--opposition is common enough.

But the opposers are usually members of either of the interested families.

Now the families--that is to say, the heads of the families--being agreed and even anxious to bring about the union of Yvonne de Canaples and Andrea de Mancini, it was something new to have a cabal of persons who, from motives of principle--as St.Auban had it--should oppose the alliance so relentlessly as to even resort to violence if no other means occurred to them.

It seemed vastly probable that Andrea would be disposed of by a knife in the back, and more than probable that a like fate would be reserved for me, since I had constituted myself his guardian angel.

For my own part, however, I had a pronounced distaste to ending my days in so unostentatious a fashion.