n
she repeats those gossiping stories."

"It must be true, since my husband acknowledged it himself, and yet
refused to give me any explanation of it. Some time since, I found that
he passed so much of his time away from home I asked you if he had any
friends with whom he was especially intimate, and you thought not. Now I
know that it was Madame Vanira he went to see. She lives at Highgate,
and he goes there every day."

"I should not think much of it, my dear, if I were you," said the
countess. "Madame Vanira is very beautiful and very accomplished--all
gentlemen like to be amused."

"I cannot argue," said Lady Chandos; "I can only say that my own
instinct and my own heart tell me there is something wrong, that there
is some tie between them. I know nothing of it--I cannot tell why I feel
this certain conviction, but I do feel it."

"It is not true, I am sure, Marion," said the countess, gravely. "I know
Lance better than any one else; I know his strength, his weakness, his
virtues, his failings. Love of intrigue is not one, neither is lightness
of love."

"Then if he cares nothing for Madame Vanira, and sees me unhappy over
her, why will he not give her up?"

"He will if you ask him," said Lady Lanswell.

"He will _not_. I have asked him. I have told him that the pain of it is
wearing my life away; but he will not. I am very unhappy, for I love my
husband."

"And he loves you," said the countess.

"I do not think so. I believe--my instinct tells me--that he loves
Madame Vanira."

"Marion, it is wicked to say such things," said the countess, severely.
"Because your husband, like every other man of the world, pays some
attention to the most gifted woman of her day, you suspect him of
infidelity, want of love and want of truth. I wonder at you."

Lady Marion raised her fair, tear-stained face.

"I cannot make you understand," she said slowly, "nor do I understand
myself. I only know what I feel, what my instinct tells me, and that is
that between my husband and Madame Vanira there is something more than I
know. I feel that there is a tie between them. He looks at her with
different eyes; he speaks to her with a different voice; when he sung
with her it was as though their souls floated away together."

"Marion," interrupted the countess, "my dear child, I begin to see what
is the matter with you--you are jealous."

"Yes, I am jealous," said the unhappy wife, "and not without cause--you
must own that.