more evident still.

"Well, one day, one of the many days during which I went up to town,
after a long afternoon with Goodman and Smale, in the course of which
they had told me they would probably require me to call at their office
to meet one of the most influential tenants at nine the next morning, I
met, on leaving their office, Marchmont--Marchmont of the Tenth, you
know."

"Yes, I know."

"He and a couple of other fellows belonging to his regiment were going
down to Richmond to dine. Would I come? It was dull in town, toward the
close of the season, and I was glad of any invitation that promised a
change of programme--anything that would take me away from a dull
evening at my club. I made no inquiries; I accepted the invitation, got
down in time for dinner, and found Mme. Istray was one of the guests.
I----"

He hesitates.

"Go on."

"You are a woman of the world, Beatrice; you will let me confess to you
that there had been old passages between me and Mme. Istray--well, I
swear to you I had never so much as thought of her since my
marriage--nay, since my engagement to Isabel. From that hour my life had
been clear as a sheet of blank paper. I had forgotten her; I verily
believe she had forgotten me, too. At that dinner I don't think she
exchanged a dozen words with me. On my soul," pushing back his hair with
a slow, troubled gesture from his brow, "this is the truth."

"And yet----"

"And yet," interrupting her with now a touch of vehement excitement, "a
garbled, a most cursedly false account of that dinner was given her. It
came round to her ears. She listened to it--believed in it--condemned
without a hearing. She, who has sworn, not only at the altar, but to me
alone, that she loved me."

"She wronged you terribly," says Lady Swansdown in a low tone.

"Thank you," cried he, a passion of gratitude in his tone. "To be
believed in by someone so thoroughly as you believe in me, is to know
happiness indeed. Whatever happens, I can count on you as my friend."

"Your friend, always," says she, in a very low voice--a voice somewhat
broken. "Come," she says, rising suddenly and walking toward the distant
lights in the house.

He accompanies her silently.

Very suddenly she turns to him, and lays her hand upon his arm.

"Be my friend," says she, with a quick access of terrible emotion.

Entreaty and despair mingle in her tone.

"Forever!" returns he, fervently, tightening his grasp on her hand.

"We