I deny you henceforth all opportunity of sinking yourself still
deeper in my estimation, of annoying me by any future demonstrations
of a style of admiration I neither desire, appreciate, nor intend to
permit. If accident should ever thrust you again across my path, you
will do well to forget that our minister committed the blunder of
sending you here to-day. Mr. Laurance will please accept my thanks
for this package of papers, which shall be returned to-morrow to the
office of the American embassy. Resolved to forget the unpleasant
incidents of to-day, Madame Orme is compelled to bid you good-bye."

Angry but undaunted, his eloquent eyes boldly bore up under hers, as
if in mortal challenge; and he bowed, with a degree of graceful
_hauteur_, fully equal to her own best efforts.

"Madame's commands shall be rigidly and literally obeyed, for
Cuthbert Laurance is far too proud to obtrude his presence or his
homage on any woman; but Mrs. Orme's interdict does not include that
public realm, where she has repeatedly assured me that gold always
secures admission to her smiles, and from which no earthly power can
debar me. Watching you from the same spot, where last night you
floated like an angelic dream of my boyhood, like a glorious
revelation upon my vision and my heart, I shall defy the world to mar
the happiness in store for me, so long as you remain in Paris. A
distant but devoted worshipper, cherishing the memory of those
thrilling glances with which 'Amy Robsart' favoured me, permit me to
wish Madame Orme a pleasant ride, and good afternoon."

He bent his handsome head low before her, and left the room less like
an exile than a conqueror, buoyed by an abiding fatalism, a fond
faith in that magnetic influence and fascination he had hitherto
successfully exerted over all, whom his wayward, fickle, fastidious
fancy had chosen to enslave.

When the sound of his retreating footsteps was no longer audible, the
slender white-robed figure moved unsteadily across the floor, entered
the adjoining dressing-room, and locked the door.

The play was over at last, the long tensions of nerve, the iron
strain on brain and heart, the steel manacles on memory, all snapped
simultaneously; the actress was trampled out of sight, the weak,
suffering, long-tortured woman bowed down in helpless and hopeless
agony before her desecrated mouldering altar, was alone with the dust
of her overturned and crumbling idol.

"My husband! O God! Th