album lay open upon it. Her eyes
were fixed upon the album, and were not raised to see the new-comer; but
the sudden accession of pallor on her pale face betrayed her recognition
of him.

He drew a chair so close to her sofa that only the little gilded stand
stood between them. His back was toward the company; his face toward her;
his elbows, with unpardonable rudeness, were placed upon the stand, and
his hands supported his chin, as he stared into her pale face with its
downcast eyes.

"Valerie," he said.

She did not look up.

"Valerie de Volaski!" he muttered.

_"My wife!"_

She shuddered, but did not lift her eyes.

She shrank into herself, as it were, and her eyes fell lower than before.

"Is it thus we two meet at last?" he demanded, in low, stern, measured
tones, pitched to meet her ear alone. "Is it thus I find you, after all
that has passed between us, bearing the name and title of another man
who calls himself your husband, oh! shame of womanhood!"

"They told me our marriage was not legal, was not binding!" she panted
under her breath.

"It should have been religiously, sacredly binding up on you as it was
upon me, until we could have made it legal. It is amazing that you could
have dreamed of marriage with another man!" muttered Volaski.

"But they told me you were dead. They told me you were dead!" she gasped,
as if she were in her own death throes.

"Even if they had told you truly--even if I had been dead--dead by the
hand of your father--could that circumstance have excused you for rushing
with such indecent haste to the altar with another man? It was but a poor
tribute to the memory of the husband of your choice (if he had been dead)
to marry again within six months."

"Oh, mercy! Oh, my heart! my heart! They forced me into that marriage,
Waldemar! They forced me into that marriage! I was as helpless as an
infant in the hands of my father and my mother!" she panted, in a voice
that was the more heart-rending from half suppression.

"Valerie! love! wife!" murmured Volaski, in low and tender tones, as he
essayed to take her hand.

But she snatched it from him hastily, gasping:

"Do not speak to me in that way! Do not call me love or wife!"

"No man on earth has a better right to speak to you in this way than I
have. No _other_ man in the world has the right to call you love or
wife but me! You _are_ my wife!" grimly answered the young count.

"I am the wife of the Duke of Hereward.