not know that her husband was Madame Vanira's shadow.
Could that be true? She remembered all at once his long absences, his
abstraction; how she wondered if he had any friends whom he visited long
and intimately.

Madame Vanira's beautiful face rose before her with its noble eloquence,
its grandeur and truth. No, that was not the woman who would try to rob
a woman of her husband's love. Madame Vanira, the queen of song, the
grand and noble woman who swayed men's hearts with her glorious voice;
Madame Vanira, who had kissed her face and called herself her friend. It
was impossible. She could sooner have believed that the sun and the moon
had fallen from the skies than that her husband had connived with her
friend to deceive her. The best plan would be to ask her husband. He
never spoke falsely; he would tell her at once whether it were true or
not. She waited until dinner was over and then said to him:

"Lance, can you spare me a few minutes? I want to speak to you."

They were in the library, where Lord Chandos had gone to write a letter.
Lady Marion looked very beautiful in her pale-blue dinner dress and a
suit of costly pearls. She went up to her husband, and kneeling down by
his side, she laid her fair arms round his neck.

"Lance," she said, "before I say what I have to say I want to make an
act of faith in you."

He smiled at the expression.

"An act of faith in me, Marion?" he said. "I hope you have all faith."

Then, remembering, he stopped, and his face flushed.

"I have need of faith," she said, "for I have heard a strange story
about you. I denied it, I deny it now, but I should be better pleased
with your denial also."

"What is the story?" he asked, anxiously, and her quick ear detected the
anxiety of his voice.

"Lady Ilfield has been here this afternoon, and tells me that last
Tuesday you were with Madame Vanira at Ousely, that you rowed her on the
river, and that Captain Blake spoke to you there. Is it true?"

"Lady Ilfield is a mischief-making old----" began Lord Chandos, but his
wife's sweet, pale face startled him.

"Lance," she cried, suddenly, "oh, my God, it is not true?"

The ring of pain and passion in her voice frightened him; she looked at
him with eyes full of woe.

"It is not true?" she repeated.

"Who said it was true?" he asked, angrily.

Then there was a few minutes of silence between them; and Lady Marion
looked at him again.

"Lance," she said, "is it true?"

Their