you not?"

"Scarcely that. I asked her to marry me," he answered.

"Which of course was impossible."

"Impossible? Why?"

She raised her eyebrows.

"Is it conceivable," she exclaimed, "that you do not know?"

"I knew of no other barrier save the difference in our social
positions," he said gravely.

She was silent for a moment.

"You did not know, then--be calm, my friend--that Emily had a husband
living?"

A sharp little cry, almost immediately smothered, broke from his lips.
He looked at his companion aghast. A flood of new light seemed to be
breaking in upon him.

"Married! Emily married!" he exclaimed. "And she never told me."

"She probably meant to in her own good time," the Duchess said. "Of
course I do not know how matters were between you, only I fancied that
some change had come to her during the last few months. I hoped that
she was growing to care for somebody. She is too rare a woman to lead
for ever a lonely life."

"But her husband?" he stammered.

"She will never do more," the Duchess said gravely, "than look upon his
face through iron bars. He is a prisoner for life in one of the
gloomiest and most impregnable of Siberian fortresses. Some day, if you
like, I will tell you the story of her marriage. It was a most unhappy
one."

"Tell me now," he begged breathlessly.

She hesitated. A foreign prince bowed before her, his breast glittering
with orders. She looked up at him smiling.

"Prince," she said, "Mr. Guest and I are elaborating together the plot
of his next novel, and it is wonderfully fascinating."

He bowed low and passed on. She turned again to Douglas.

"I can tell it you," she said, "sufficiently in half a dozen sentences.
Emily was the orphan child of one of the richest and noblest Hungarian
families--the man she married was half a Pole half a Hungarian, poor,
but also of noble family. His life was a network of deceit, he himself
was a conspirator of the lowest order. He married Emily for her
money--that it might be used for what he called the Cause. When she
declined to have anything to do with it he first ill-treated her
shamefully, and afterwards deserted her. Twice he was graciously
pardoned by the Czar, twice he broke his word of honour and plunged
again into infamy. The third time it seemed that nothing could save
him, for he was caught in the act of directing a shameful conspiracy
against the man who had treated him so generously. He was sentenced to
death, but