"Kiss me, Lady Marion, kiss me with your lips; now place your hands in mine. I promise you that I will not take your husband from you; that he shall not go to Berlin, either with me or after me. I promise you--listen and believe me--that I will never see or speak to your husband again, and this I do for the sake of Lance's little child." "I believe you," said Lady Marion, the light deepening in her sweet eyes and on her fair face. "I believe you, and from the depth of my heart I thank you. We shall be happy, I am sure." "In the midst of your happiness will you remember me?" asked Leone, gently. "Always, as my best, dearest and truest friend," said Lady Marion; and they parted that summer morning never to meet again until the water gives up its dead. Lady Marion drove home with a smile on her fair face, such as had not been seen there before. It would all come right. She believed in Madame Vana's simple words as in the pledge of another. How it would be managed she did not know--did not think; but madame would keep her word, and her husband would be her own--would never be cool to her or seek to leave her again; it would be all well. All that day there was a light on her face that did one's heart good to see; and when Lady Lanswell saw her that evening she knew that all was well. "Lance's little child!" The words had been a death-knell to Leone. She had seen his wife and lived--she had seen him in his home with that same fair wife by his side, and she had lived; but at the thought of her rival's children in his arms her whole soul died. Died--never to live again. She sat for some time just where Lady Marion left her, and she said to herself a thousand times over and over again those words--"Lance's little child." Only God knows the anguish that came over her, the piercing sorrow, the bitter pain--the memory of those few months when she had believed herself to be Lance's wife. She fell on her knees with a great, passionate cry. "Oh, Heaven," she cried, "save me from myself!" The most beautiful woman in Europe, the most gifted singer on the stage, the idol of the world of fashion--she lay there helpless, hopeless, despairing, with that one cry rising from her lips on which a world had hung: "Heaven have mercy on me, and save me from myself!" When she woke, the real world seemed to have vanished from her. She heard the sound of running water; a mill-wheel turning in a deep stream; she heard the rush and the foaming of water, the song of the birds overhead, the rustle of the great boughs, the cooing of the blue and white pigeons. Why, surely, that was a dream of home.