or Diana, went and
lived in Paris."

Again the bravely-suppressed emotion made Jeannie's voice to quiver.

"That is what I mean when I said that M. Dupre let her go," she said.
"Often I think it was a barbarous kindness. He could not live with her
any more--the fact that he loved her so much made that impossible--and
he had either to divorce her or--or let her vanish into the glittering
crowd of those who--who are made like that. He chose the latter: he
accounted for her disappearance by the news, sent to Amiens and sent to
us in England, that she had died.

"So five years ago Diana went to Paris, and for a time lived, not with
the man who had taken her from her husband, but with another. During her
married life she had lived in that beautiful country-house of his near
Amiens, seldom going to Paris, and no one apparently ever found out who
she really was. Then----"

Again Jeannie paused--paused a long time; and before she spoke she put
her hands over her eyes, as if to shut out some dreadful vision.

"Then she left that man," she said, "and lived with another. You know
him; I know him; Daisy also."

It was as if Lady Nottingham had caught sight of that which made Jeannie
cover her eyes, for she winced and drew back.

"Don't--don't!" she said; "I can't bear that, please, Jeannie!"

At the sound of the beseeching voice Jeannie recovered all her
self-control. She was wanted; Alice wanted her for comfort.

"Oh, my dear, you must not be afraid," she said. "We have to face the
facts and not be afraid of them, but do our best, and see how we can
arrest or alter the train of their consequences. It was he--Tom
Lindfield."

Again she paused, and again continued, speaking quietly.

"I knew nothing of all this till a little over a year ago," she said;
"for even as M. Dupre had wished to spare Diana shame and publicity,
so, I suppose, he wished to spare us the knowledge of what Diana had
done, and it was thus that neither you nor Daisy nor I knew anything
of it. I think perhaps he ought to have told us--told you and me,
anyhow. But he did not, and it is of no use to think what we should
have done if he had. But rather more than a year ago Diana herself
wrote to me--wrote me a pitiful, heart-breaking letter. I thought at
first it must be some grim practical joke, though I could not imagine
who had played so cruel a trick, or why the trick had been played at
all. But it was Diana's handwriting, and she enclosed a photogra