r head again the Countess Gemini hovered before her.
She had come in all unperceived; she had a strange smile on her thin
lips and her whole face had grown in an hour a shining intimation. She
lived assuredly, it might be said, at the window of her spirit, but now
she was leaning far out. "I knocked," she began, "but you didn't
answer me. So I ventured in. I've been looking at you for the past five
minutes. You're very unhappy."

"Yes; but I don't think you can comfort me."

"Will you give me leave to try?" And the Countess sat down on the
sofa beside her. She continued to smile, and there was something
communicative and exultant in her expression. She appeared to have
a deal to say, and it occurred to Isabel for the first time that her
sister-in-law might say something really human. She made play with her
glittering eyes, in which there was an unpleasant fascination. "After
all," she soon resumed, "I must tell you, to begin with, that I don't
understand your state of mind. You seem to have so many scruples, so
many reasons, so many ties. When I discovered, ten years ago, that my
husband's dearest wish was to make me miserable--of late he has simply
let me alone--ah, it was a wonderful simplification! My poor Isabel,
you're not simple enough."

"No, I'm not simple enough," said Isabel.

"There's something I want you to know," the Countess declared--"because
I think you ought to know it. Perhaps you do; perhaps you've guessed it.
But if you have, all I can say is that I understand still less why you
shouldn't do as you like."

"What do you wish me to know?" Isabel felt a foreboding that made her
heart beat faster. The Countess was about to justify herself, and this
alone was portentous.

But she was nevertheless disposed to play a little with her subject.
"In your place I should have guessed it ages ago. Have you never really
suspected?"

"I've guessed nothing. What should I have suspected? I don't know what
you mean."

"That's because you've such a beastly pure mind. I never saw a woman
with such a pure mind!" cried the Countess.

Isabel slowly got up. "You're going to tell me something horrible."

"You can call it by whatever name you will!" And the Countess rose
also, while her gathered perversity grew vivid and dreadful. She stood
a moment in a sort of glare of intention and, as seemed to Isabel even
then, of ugliness; after which she said: "My first sister-in-law had no
children."

Isabel stared back