you--that I love
you! That my soul was in hell with what I believed to be true!"

It seemed to Marie-Louise that she was living through some terrible,
horrible dream. She reached out behind her, groping for the modelling
platform, and sank down upon it. Mademoiselle's laugh was echoing
through the room again, and there was something--something so menacing
in it that it made her shudder.

"Love!"--Myrna Bliss was quivering with passion, as she stepped
fiercely toward Paul Valmain. "Love! If I were a man, I would kill
you for that kind of love! I would kill you! You beast! You dared to
think--to think that I had come here in the middle of the night alone,
to--to spend the night here! You dared to think that of me!
That--that I was--"

"Myrna! Mademoiselle!"--his hands went out to her. His face was
ghastly white. "Wait! For God's sake--wait! You do not understand!"
He whirled around and pointed to Marie-Louise. "Look at her! Look!
It is your cloak--your hat! It was dark across the street. She was
wearing your hat and cloak!"

"I heard you say all that before!" she retorted instantly. "I do not
care what she was wearing! I do not care what she looked like! You
dared to think that it was me! You dared to hold me as little better
than a woman of the streets! You dared to do that--you despicable
hound!" Her fingers were opening and shutting spasmodically. "I hate
you! I loathe you! I would strangle you for it, if I were strong
enough!"

He shrank back from her, his lips working.

"You are merciless!" he said in a choked way. "You--you do not
understand. You--you do not understand what helped to make me--to--why
I came to be there last night. It was the key of that door there, the
key of the door to the salon, the afternoon after the reception."

Myrna Bliss appeared to control herself with an effort.

"The key!"--there was well-simulated bewilderment in the quick, angry
exclamation.

"When we came in," he said hurriedly. "Laparde, who was acting
strangely, had just unlocked the door, and he was still holding the key
in his hand without knowing it."

It was a moment before she spoke--while her eyes swept him scornfully
from head to foot.

"I wish Jean had killed you!"--her lips were just parted over her
clenched teeth. "So--you have the temerity to add another insult to
the first! That Jean and I were together in a locked room! I remember
the key now. And so Jean was acting str