ted her tone of affectionate and
brooding interest. 'What a strange thing the human heart is, isn't it?'

'Very, very strange.'

'How dear and frank of you to see it all as you do. And there are no
more mistakes now,' said Mrs. Mallison. 'No one is reasonable and every
one is radiant.'

'Every one is radiant and reasonable too, I hope,' said Althea. Her head
still whirled as she heard herself analysing for Mrs. Mallison's
correction these sanctities of her life. Odious, intolerable, insolent
woman! She could have burst into tears as she walked beside her, held by
her, while her hateful dogs, shrilly barking, bounded buoyantly around
them.

'It's dear of you too, to tell me all about it,' said Mrs. Mallison.
'Have you seen Helen yet? She is just back.'

'No, I've not seen her.'

'You will meet? I am sure you will still be friends--two such real
people as you are.'

'Of course we shall meet. Helen is one of my dearest friends.'

'I see. It is so beautiful when people can rise above things. You make
me very happy. Don't tell Helen what I've told you,' Mrs. Mallison with
gentle gaiety warned her. 'I knew--in case you hadn't heard--that it
would relieve you so intensely to hear that she and Gerald were happy,
in spite of what you had to do to them. But it would make Helen cross
with me if she knew I'd told you when she hadn't. I'm rather afraid of
Helen, aren't you? I'm sure she'll give Gerald dreadful scoldings
sometimes. Poor, dear Gerald!' Mrs. Mallison laughed reminiscently.
'Never have I beheld such a transfigured being. I didn't think he had it
in him to be in love to such an extent. Oh, it was all in his face--his
eyes--when he looked at her.'

Yes, malicious, malicious to the point of vulgarity; that was Althea's
thought as, like an arrow released from long tension, she sped away, the
turn of the square once made and Mrs. Mallison and her dogs once more
received into the small house in an adjacent street. Tears were in
Althea's eyes, hot tears, of fury, of humiliation, and--oh, it flooded
over her--of bitterest sorrow and yearning. Gerald, radiant Gerald--lost
to her for ever; not even lost; never possessed. And into the sorrow and
humiliation, poisonous suspicions crept. When did it happen? Where was
she? What had been done to her? She must see; she must know. She hailed
a hansom and was driven to old Miss Buchanan's house in Belgravia.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

Helen was sitting at her writing-table be