s side. When
these things are done, it would be well for your future happiness to lay
aside further meddling with the mystery of your husband's
disappearance."

"I have learned a lesson," she said more composedly. "I shall do as you
command, because I feel sure it is a command. I have some curiosity
however about the life which Horace led after he disappeared. Since you
must have known him a little, would it be asking too much from you...."

She lost her courage at sight of his expression. Her voice faded. Oh,
shallow as any frog-pond, indecently shallow, to ask such a question of
the judge who had just ordered her to execution. His contempt silenced
her. With a formal apology for having caused her so much pain, he bowed
and withdrew. Some emotion had stirred him during the interview, but he
had kept himself well under control. Later he found it was horror, ever
to have been linked with a monster; and dread too that in a sudden
access of passion he might have done her to death. It seemed natural and
righteous to strike and destroy the reptile.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

A TALE WELL TOLD.

Of these strange and stirring events no one knew but Arthur himself; nor
of the swift consequences, the divorce of Sonia from her lost husband,
her marriage to Quincy Lenox, the death and burial of her little boy in
England, and the establishment of La Belle Colette and her son Horace in
Chicago, where the temptation to annoy her enemies disappeared, and the
risk to herself was practically removed forever. Thus faded the old life
out of Arthur's view, its sin-stained personages frightened off the
scene by his well-used knowledge of their crimes. Whatever doubt they
held about his real character, self-interest accepted him as Arthur
Dillon.

He was free. Honora saw the delight of that freedom in his loving and
candid expression. He repressed his feelings no more, no longer bound.

He was gayer than ever before, with the gaiety of his nature, not of the
part which he had played. Honora knew how deeply she loved him, from her
very dread of inflicting on him that pain which was bound to come. The
convent would be her rich possession; but he who had given her and her
father all that man could give, he would have only bitter remembrance.
How bitter that could be experience with her father informed her. The
mystery of his life attracted her. If not Arthur Dillon, who was he?
What tragedy had driven him from one life into another? Did