"If I can do anything in your absence, you have only to command me." He rose from his chair, and approaching the window where I sat in a half-reclining position, he drew a small chair opposite mine, and sitting down, laid one hand confidingly on my wrist.
"You can do much!" he replied, earnestly, "and I feel that I can thoroughly depend upon you.

Watch over HER! She will have no other protector, and she is so beautiful and careless! You can guard her--your age, your rank and position, the fact of your being an old friend of the family--all these things warrant your censorship and vigilance over her, and you can prevent any other man from intruding himself upon her notice--" "If he does," I exclaimed, starting up from my seat with a mock tragic air, "I will not rest till his body serves my sword as a sheath!" And I laughed loudly, clapping him on the shoulder as I spoke.

The words were the very same he had himself uttered when I had witnessed his interview with my wife in the avenue.

He seemed to find something familiar in the phrase, for he looked confused and puzzled.

Seeing this, I hastened to turn the current of his reflections.