u mean: does she speak the truth?" Her niece considered. "Well,
I'll tell you: in almost everything she says, there's something true
and something untrue. But why do you ask? What has she been telling
you?"

He looked away into the fire, and then back at her shining presence.
His heart tightened with the thought that this was their last evening
by that fireside, and that in a moment the carriage would come to carry
her away.

"She says--she pretends that Count Olenski has asked her to persuade
you to go back to him."

Madame Olenska made no answer. She sat motionless, holding her
cigarette in her half-lifted hand. The expression of her face had not
changed; and Archer remembered that he had before noticed her apparent
incapacity for surprise.

"You knew, then?" he broke out.

She was silent for so long that the ash dropped from her cigarette.
She brushed it to the floor. "She has hinted about a letter: poor
darling! Medora's hints--"

"Is it at your husband's request that she has arrived here suddenly?"

Madame Olenska seemed to consider this question also. "There again:
one can't tell. She told me she had had a 'spiritual summons,'
whatever that is, from Dr. Carver. I'm afraid she's going to marry Dr.
Carver ... poor Medora, there's always some one she wants to marry.
But perhaps the people in Cuba just got tired of her! I think she was
with them as a sort of paid companion. Really, I don't know why she
came."

"But you do believe she has a letter from your husband?"

Again Madame Olenska brooded silently; then she said: "After all, it
was to be expected."

The young man rose and went to lean against the fireplace. A sudden
restlessness possessed him, and he was tongue-tied by the sense that
their minutes were numbered, and that at any moment he might hear the
wheels of the returning carriage.

"You know that your aunt believes you will go back?"

Madame Olenska raised her head quickly. A deep blush rose to her face
and spread over her neck and shoulders. She blushed seldom and
painfully, as if it hurt her like a burn.

"Many cruel things have been believed of me," she said.

"Oh, Ellen--forgive me; I'm a fool and a brute!"

She smiled a little. "You are horribly nervous; you have your own
troubles. I know you think the Wellands are unreasonable about your
marriage, and of course I agree with you. In Europe people don't
understand our long American engagements; I suppose they ar