"At any rate, I feel more at ease now. Du Prat will not commit any folly." For once the Southerner had not realized the irony of his own thoughts. He was as naïve as his secret wife, simple-minded Andryana, who, discovering Madame du Prat at one of the roulette tables, replied to the questions of the young wife without noticing her trouble, answering with the most imprudent serenity. "You were talking about a Baroness Ely in the train.--What an odd name!" "It is a diminutive of Elizabeth, and is common enough in Austria." "Then she is an Austrian?" "What! You don't know her? It is Madame de Carlsberg, the morganatic wife of the Archduke Henry Francis.--You are sure to meet her in Cannes. And you will see for yourself how beautiful and good and sympathetic she is." "Did she not live in Rome for some time?" continued the young wife. How her heart beat as she asked the question! The Venetian replied in the most natural tone:-- "Yes, for a couple of winters. She was not on good terms with her husband then, and they lived according to their own guise. Things are a little better now, although--" And the good creature was discreetly silent. CHAPTER IX FRIEND AND MISTRESS--_Continued_ The sentiment of perfect happiness that Ely experienced when she was convinced, in talking to Pierre, that Olivier had not disclosed anything to his friend did not continue long. She knew her former lover too well not to understand the constant danger threatening her. She knew that he still remembered her, and she realized the intensity of morbid passion of which the unhappy man was capable. It was impossible that he should not feel toward her now as in the past, that he should not judge her in the present as during the time of their liaison, with a savage cruelty allied to a suspicion that had so wounded her. She knew how dearly he loved Hantefeuille. She knew how solicitous, how jealous that friendship was. No, he would not suffer her to possess his beloved companion without a struggle, were it only to save him from her whom he judged so hardly. Besides her tact, the intuition of the former mistress was not to be deceived. When the man whom she knew to suffer, as from a malady, from a sensuality that was almost ferocious, should learn the truth, his worst, most hideous jealousy would be aroused into action. Had she not counted upon this very thing in the first place when she had nourished a scheme of vengeance that to-day filled her with shame?