"I wonder if Mr. _Deane_ is here to-night," she was thinking, when Colonel Carlyle's voice spoke suddenly beside her, and she bowed haughtily, actuated by a little feeling of pique, and lifted her sea-blue eyes to the face of the artist. She met his gaze fixed steadily upon her with a look of utter surprise, bitter pain and bitterer scorn upon his deathly pale face. In an instant the tide of time rolled backward and these two, standing face to face the first time in years, knew each other! Ah, me! how could she bear the revelation that flashed over her so swiftly, and live through its horror, its shame and disgrace! The words she had been about to speak died unuttered on her lips, the lights, the flowers, the stern, set face of Leslie Dane, all swam before her eyes as things "seen in a glass, darkly." She threw up her hands blindly and reeled backward, striking against the light _jardiniere_ as she fell. It was overturned by the shock, and scattered its wealth of flowers about her as she lay there unconscious, as beautiful, as fragile, as innocent as they. For a moment neither Colonel Carlyle nor Leslie Dane moved or spoke. It was a third person who pushed past them and lifted the fair, inanimate form. For Colonel Carlyle, there was murder seething in his jealous heart that moment, and in the breast of Leslie Dane a grand scorn was strangling every emotion of pity. "Falser than all fancy fathoms, Falser than all songs have sung," was the thought in his heart as he looked down on the pale and lifeless face. People crowded around, with advice and restoratives, and as she came back slowly to life they asked her what had caused her to faint. Was she ill, were the flowers too overpowering, were the rooms too warm? "I struck my head against the _jardiniere_ and fell," was all she would say as she hid her pale face in her hands to shut out the sight of the cold, calm eyes that looked down upon her with veiled scorn. Colonel Carlyle revived sufficiently to lead her away to her room, and people told each other that an accident had happened to Mrs. Carlyle. She had struck her head against the _jardiniere_ of flowers and fainted from the pain. CHAPTER XXVII. Colonel Carlyle would fain have lingered in Bonnibel's apartment and asked for some explanation of her fainting spell, which he was convinced was the result of her meeting with the artist, although her simple assertion of striking her head against the _jardiniere_ had deceived all others except himself, as it might have deceived him but for the warning of the masked sibyl. But it was quite true that she had hurt her head, and when the faithful Lucy parted the thick locks and began to dress the slight wound, her young mistress turned so ghastly pale and closed her eyes so wearily that the jealous old man saw that it was no fitting time for recrimination, and went away to attend to his guests, half-resolved to have it out with the artist himself.