arion, you should not
go on in this way, you will kill yourself."

"Lady Lanswell, I wish that I were dead; my husband has ceased to love
me. Oh, God, let me die!" cried poor Lady Marion, and the countess was
seriously alarmed.

"My dear child, pray be reasonable," she cried; "how can you say that
Lance has ceased to love you?"

"It is true," said the unhappy wife; "he refused to give up Madame
Vanira, and what seems to me more dreadful still, she is going to
Berlin, and he insists on going also. I cannot bear it, Lady Lanswell!"

"We must reason with him," said the countess, grandly, and despite the
tragedy of her sorrow, Lady Marion smiled.

"Reason with him? You might as well stand before a hard, white rock and
ask roses to bloom on it; you might as well stand before the great
heaving ocean and ask the tide not to roll in, as to try to reason with
him. I do not understand it, but I am quite sure that he is infatuated
by Madame Vanira; I could almost fancy that she had worked some spell
over him. Why should he care for her? Why should he visit her? Why
should he go to Berlin because she is there?"

The countess, listening, thanked Heaven that she did not know. If ever
that secret became known, it was all over with the House of Lanswell.

"I have said all that I can say," she continued, rising in great
agitation; "and it is of no use; he is utterly shameless."

"Hush, woman! I will not have you say such things of my son; he may like
and admire Madame Vanira, but I trust him, and would trust him anywhere;
you think too much of it, and you make more of it than you need. Let me
pray of you to be prudent; want of prudence in a wife at such a juncture
as this has very often occasioned misery for life. Are you quite sure
that you cannot be generous enough to allow your husband the pleasure of
this friendship, which I can certify is a good one?"

The countess sighed; the matter was indeed beyond her. In her artificial
life, these bare, honest human passions had no place.

"Over the journey to Berlin," she said, "you are making too much of it.
If he enjoys madame's society, and likes Berlin, where is the harm of
his enjoying them together?"

So she spoke; but she shrunk from the clear gaze of those blue eyes.

"Lady Lanswell, you know all that is nonsense. My husband is mine, and I
will not share his love or his affection with any one. Unless he gives
up Madame Vanira, I shall leave him. If he goes to Berlin, I wi