d good-by to her! It was in July, after the
Eton and Harrow match!

"Yes, in June," she said sadly, turning her eyes down. "And you might
have told me, Tristram. It came as such a sudden shock. It made me
seriously ill. You must have known, and were probably engaged--even
then."

Tristram sat mute; for how could he announce the truth?

"Oh, don't let us talk of these things, Laura. Let us forget those old
times and begin again--differently. You will be a dear friend to me
always, I am sure. You always were--" and then he stopped abruptly. He
felt this was too much lying! and he hated doing such things.

"Of course I will, dar--Tristram," Laura said, and appeared much moved.

And from where Zara was trying to talk to the Duke she saw the woman
shiver and look down provokingly and her husband stretch his long limbs
out; and a sudden, unknown sensation of blinding rage came over her, and
she did not hear a syllable of the Duke's speech.

Meanwhile Lady Anningford had retired to a seat in a window with the
Crow.

"Is it all right, Crow?" she asked, and one of his peculiarities was to
understand her--as Lady Ethelrida understood the Duke--and and not ask
"What?"

"Will be--some day--I expect--unless they get drowned in the current
first."

"Isn't she mysterious, Crow? I am sure she has some tragic history. Have
you heard anything?"

"Husband murdered by another man in a row at Monte Carlo."

"Over her?"

"I don't know for a fact, but I gather--not. You may be certain, Queen
Anne, that when a woman is as quiet and haughty as Lady Tancred looks,
and her manners are as cold and perfectly sure of herself as hers are,
she has not done anything she is ashamed of, or regrets."

"Then what can be the cause of the coolness between them? Look at
Tristram now! I think it is horrid of him--sitting like that talking to
Laura, don't you?"

"A viper, Laura," growled the Crow. "She's trying to get him again in
the rebound."

"I cannot imagine why women cannot leave other women's husbands alone.
They are hateful creatures, most of them."

"Natural instinct of the chase," said Colonel Lowerby.

But Lady Anningford flashed.

"You are a cynic, Crow."

* * * * *

"And you will really show me your favorite haunts to-morrow, Lady
Ethelrida?" Francis Markrute was saying to his hostess. He had contrived
insidiously to detach her conversation from a group to himself, and drew
her unconsciousl