ed to be explained."

"He is explained by the hypothesis that, three-and-twenty years ago, at
Ancona, Mrs. Light had a lover."

"I see. Ancona was dull, Mrs. Light was lively, and--three-and-twenty
years ago--perhaps, the Cavaliere was fascinating. Doubtless it would be
fairer to say that he was fascinated. Poor Giacosa!"

"He has had his compensation," Rowland said. "He has been passionately
fond of Christina."

"Naturally. But has Christina never wondered why?"

"If she had been near guessing, her mother's shabby treatment of him
would have put her off the scent. Mrs. Light's conscience has apparently
told her that she could expiate an hour's too great kindness by twenty
years' contempt. So she kept her secret. But what is the profit of
having a secret unless you can make some use of it? The day at last came
when she could turn hers to account; she could let the skeleton out of
the closet and create a panic."

"I don't understand."

"Neither do I morally," said Rowland. "I only conceive that there was a
horrible, fabulous scene. The poor Cavaliere stood outside, at the
door, white as a corpse and as dumb. The mother and daughter had it out
together. Mrs. Light burnt her ships. When she came out she had three
lines of writing in her daughter's hand, which the Cavaliere was
dispatched with to the prince. They overtook the young man in time, and,
when he reappeared, he was delighted to dispense with further waiting. I
don't know what he thought of the look in his bride's face; but that is
how I roughly reconstruct history."

"Christina was forced to decide, then, that she could not afford not to
be a princess?"

"She was reduced by humiliation. She was assured that it was not for her
to make conditions, but to thank her stars that there were none made for
her. If she persisted, she might find it coming to pass that there would
be conditions, and the formal rupture--the rupture that the world would
hear of and pry into--would then proceed from the prince and not from
her."

"That 's all nonsense!" said Madame Grandoni, energetically.

"To us, yes; but not to the proudest girl in the world, deeply wounded
in her pride, and not stopping to calculate probabilities, but muffling
her shame, with an almost sensuous relief, in a splendor that stood
within her grasp and asked no questions. Is it not possible that the
late Mr. Light had made an outbreak before witnesses who are still
living?"

"Certainly her marria