Ah, Lady Lanswell, you would be sorry for me if you knew
all. See, it is wearing me away; my heart beats, my hands tremble, and
they burn like fire. Oh, my God, how I suffer!"

The Countess of Lanswell, in her superb dress of black velvet, sat by in
silence; for the first time in her life she was baffled; for the first
time in her life she was face to face with a human passion. Hitherto, in
her cold, proud presence all passion had veiled itself; this unhappy
wife laid hers bare, and my lady was at a loss what to say. In her calm,
proud life there had been no room for jealousy; she had never known it,
she did not even understand the pain.

If her husband had gone out for a day with the most beautiful woman on
earth, she would either have completely ignored the fact, or, with a
smiling satire, have passed it by. She did not love the earl well enough
to be jealous of him; she did not understand love or jealousy in others.
She sat now quite helpless before the unhappy wife, whose grief annoyed
her.

"This will not do, Marion," she said, "you will make yourself quite
ill."

"Ill," repeated Lady Marion, "I have been ill in heart and soul for many
days, and now I am sick unto death. I wish I could die; life has nothing
left for me."

"Die, my dear, it seems such a trifle, such a trifle; one day spent
together on a river. Is that anything for you to die about?"

The sweet blue eyes raised wistfully to hers were full of pain.

"You do not see, you do not understand. Only think how much intimacy
there must have been between them before he would ask her to go, or she
consent to go. If they are but strangers, or even every-day friends,
what could they find to talk about for a whole day?"

The countess shrugged her shoulders.

"I am surprised," she said, "for I thought Madame Vanira so far above
all coquetry. If I were you, Marion, I would forget it."

"I cannot forget it," she cried. "Would to God that I could. It is
eating my heart away."

"Then," said my lady, "I will speak to Lance at once, and I am quite
sure that at one word from me he will give up the acquaintance, for the
simple reason that you do not like it."

And with this promise the countess left her daughter-in-law. Once
before, not by her bidding, but by her intrigues, she had persuaded him
to give up one whom he loved; surely a few words from her now would
induce him to give up her whom he could not surely love. It never
occurred to her to dream that t