he
happiest girl in all England, her only anxiety being to make herself
more beautiful than ever in her husband's eyes. The morning itself was
not more fresh and fair; everything had been _couleur de rose_.

Her husband, as she believed him, thought so little of the quarrel with
his parents that she had imbibed his careless, happy ideas about it.
There was no cloud in her sky, no doubt in her heart; now her heart was
full of despair. She looked at the blue September sky, and asked herself
if it were possible to realize what had happened. She was dazed,
stunned, as though some one had struck her a violent blow. She went out
of the pretty drawing-room where she had heard what seemed to her her
death-warrant. She opened her white lips to breathe the pure, fresh air
of heaven.

As she stood there panting for breath, one of the servants came to her,
holding a letter in her hand. Leone opened it. The few hastily-written
lines were from her husband. They said, simply:

"MY DARLING,--I shall not be able to return home to-day. I have
some disagreeable business in town, of which I will tell you more
anon. I shall be at home for luncheon to-morrow. Believe me, always
your loving husband,

"LANCE."

She looked at the word "husband" until the letters seemed to burn like
fire. He had signed himself her husband. Ah, then, it was quite plain
that he neither believed, or, perhaps, had not even heard, of what had
been done. As she stood there with the fading boughs of a spreading tree
over her head, the words came to her again and again:

"Those vows were all forgotten,
The ring asunder broke."

She seemed once more to hear the falling of the waters. Would the vows
made to her ever be broken? Ah, no! a thousand times no!

She would go to his mother and appeal to her. A woman must, of course,
be merciful to a woman. She would go herself and appeal to Lucia,
Countess of Lanswell.

CHAPTER XVII.

"I WOULD RATHER SEE MY SON DEAD."

The countess stood alone in the drawing-room. The sun was setting over
the trees in the park, and a warm glow filled the beautiful room with
rosy light--a light that fell on costly pictures, on marble statues, on
buhl and jasper, on silver and gold, on mirrors and flowers, whose
fragrance was delicious even to breathe, but it fell on my lady's proud
face and figure as though it liked best to linger there.

The dressing-bell had not rung, and she, waiting for