would keep her word, and her husband would be her own--would never be
cool to her or seek to leave her again; it would be all well.

All that day there was a light on her face that did one's heart good to
see; and when Lady Lanswell saw her that evening she knew that all was
well.

"Lance's little child!" The words had been a death-knell to Leone. She
had seen his wife and lived--she had seen him in his home with that same
fair wife by his side, and she had lived; but at the thought of her
rival's children in his arms her whole soul died.

Died--never to live again. She sat for some time just where Lady Marion
left her, and she said to herself a thousand times over and over again
those words--"Lance's little child." Only God knows the anguish that
came over her, the piercing sorrow, the bitter pain--the memory of those
few months when she had believed herself to be Lance's wife. She fell on
her knees with a great, passionate cry.

"Oh, Heaven," she cried, "save me from myself!"

The most beautiful woman in Europe, the most gifted singer on the stage,
the idol of the world of fashion--she lay there helpless, hopeless,
despairing, with that one cry rising from her lips on which a world had
hung:

"Heaven have mercy on me, and save me from myself!"

When she woke, the real world seemed to have vanished from her. She
heard the sound of running water; a mill-wheel turning in a deep stream;
she heard the rush and the foaming of water, the song of the birds
overhead, the rustle of the great boughs, the cooing of the blue and
white pigeons. Why, surely, that was a dream of home.

Home--the old farmhouse where Robert Noel lived, the kind, slow, stolid
farmer. She could hear him calling, "Leone, where are you?" and the
pigeons deafened her as they whirled round her head. She struggled for a
time with her dazed, bewildered senses; but she could not tell which was
the real life, whether she was at home again in the old farmhouse, and
had dreamed a long, troubled dream, or whether she was dreaming now.

Her brain burned--it was like liquid fire; and she seemed to see always
a golden-haired child.

"Lance's little child." Yes, there he was holding mother and child both
in his arms, kissing them, while she lay there helpless and despairing.

"Mine was always a mad love," she said to herself--"a mad love."

Then she heard a sound of music--softest, sweetest music--floating
through the room, and woke to reason with a terr