w and wonderful.
From the first moment the curtain rose until it fell the whole audience
was breathless.

Lady Chandos laid down her jeweled opera-glass while she drew a breath
of relief, it was so wonderful to her, this woman all fire, and genius
and power.

"Lance," she said to her husband, "what a wonderful face it is. Have you
looked well at it?"

She glanced carelessly at her husband as she spoke, then started at the
change in him; his whole face had altered, the expression of careless
interest had died, the color and light had died, his dark eyes had a
strained, bewildered look; they were shadowed as though by some great
doubt or fear.

"Lance," said his wife, "are you not well? You look so strange--quite
unlike yourself."

He turned away lest she should see his face more plainly, and then she
continued:

"If you are not well, we will go home, dear; nothing will interest me
without you."

He made a great effort and spoke to her; but the very tone of his voice
was altered, all the sweetness and music had gone out of it.

"I am well," he said, "pray do not feel anxious over me; the house is
very full and very warm."

"What do you think of La Vanira?" continued Lady Chandos; "how very
different she is to any one else."

He laughed, and the sound was forced and unnatural.

"I think she is very wonderful," he replied.

"And beautiful?" asked Lady Marion, with a look of eager anxiety.

He was too wise and too wary to reply with anything like enthusiasm.

"Beautiful for those who like brunettes," he answered coldly, and his
wife's heart was at rest. If he had gone into raptures she would have
been disgusted.

"If she would but leave me in peace," thought Lord Chandos to himself.

He was bewildered and confused. Before him stood the great and gifted
singer whom kings and emperors had delighted to honor, the most
beautiful and brilliant of women; yet surely those dark, lustrous eyes
had looked in his own; surely he had kissed the quivering lips, over
which such rich strains of music rolled; surely he knew that beautiful
face. He had seen it under the starlight, under the shade of green trees
by the mill-stream; it must be the girl he had loved with such mad love,
and had married more than four years ago. Yet, how could it be? Of Leone
he had never heard one syllable.

Mr. Sewell had written to Lady Lanswell to tell her of her indignant
rejection of all help, of her disappearance, how she never even r