situation.

'We both owe a debt to Mademoiselle Selpdorf for carrying the message,'
he said.

'You are mistaken,' said Valerie, and he winced under the contempt of
her voice. 'I should never have stooped to carry it had I not had a far
different object in view.'

Isolde laughed to a shrill echo. Valerie Selpdorf's haughty spirit was
about to be humbled. She dimly felt why Rallywood held the girl to be
far above the level of ordinary womanhood--a cold and unattainable star.
But she should be dragged down from the heights before his eyes.

'I was not so blind as you supposed,' Isolde said aloud, pointing an
accusing finger at Valerie. 'I knew why you went. Shall I tell you,
Jack?'

Rallywood looked up quickly. Colendorp naturally recurred to his mind.

'You could not have known,' Valerie answered.

'But I did, though!' Isolde went on. 'Listen to me, Jack. Do you know
why she undertook my message, and why she forgot its most important
point? My life has come to-night to a crisis; I will not spare those who
have been cruel to me!' Isolde was trembling with excitement as she
leant forward, one hand holding by the table that stood between her and
Valerie, the other clenched in the soft fur of the rug on her knees.
'Why? Oh, men are so simple! They believe a woman to be pure and true
if she but knows how to temper her coquetries with a pretence of
reserve. Jack, Valerie has been false to me and to you because she is
jealous of me, and--because she herself loves you!'

Rallywood rose slowly. 'Hush, Madame!'

Valerie stood for one instant scarlet from neck to brow, then the blood
ebbed and left her of a curious deadly pallor like one who has a mortal
wound, but she still faced them.

'Wait, Jack. You shall hear the end now that we have gone so far.'
Isolde laughed again. She was so sure of her lover. 'It is well for the
truth to come out sometimes, you know. Yes, Valerie Selpdorf, the proud,
unapproachable Valerie, loves a captain of the Guard, who----'

Rallywood strode across in front of her. After such words of outrage,
his very nearness to Mademoiselle Selpdorf seemed in itself an insult.
With his back to the door he stopped and took up the last unfinished
sentence.

'You have made a strange mistake, Madame,' he said in a low voice but
very clearly. 'On the contrary, it is the captain of the Guard who has
loved Mademoiselle Selpdorf, and even dared to tell her so, although she
had shown him that she regarded