"Oh, you know," she said. "Don't be a hypocrite. You are not 'Alcide.' You have no right to call yourself 'Alcide.' You used to declare that you hated the name. You used to beg me for hours at a time to give it all up, never to go near the 'Ambassador's' again. And yet the moment I am safely out of the way you are content to dress yourself in my rags, to go and get yourself popular and admired and successful, all on my reputation." "Annabel! Annabel!" Annabel stamped her foot. Her tone was hoarse with passion. "Oh, you can act!" she cried. "You can look as innocent and shocked as you please. I want to know who sent you those." She pointed with shaking fingers to a great bunch of dark red carnations, thrust carelessly into a deep china bowl, to which the card was still attached. Anna followed her finger, and looked back into her sister's face. "They were sent to me by Mr. Nigel Ennison, Annabel. How on earth does it concern you?" Annabel laughed hardly. "Concern me!" she repeated fiercely. "You are not content then with stealing from me my name. You would steal from me then the only man I ever cared a snap of the fingers about. They are not your flowers. They are mine! They were sent to 'Alcide' not to you." Anna rose to her feet. At last she was roused. Her cheeks were flushed, and her eyes bright. "Annabel," she said, "you are my sister, or I would bid you take the flowers if you care for them, and leave the room. But behind these things which you have said to me there must be others of which I know nothing. You speak as one injured--as though I had been the one to take your name--as though you had been the one to make sacrifices. In your heart you know very well that this is absurd. It is you who took my name, not I yours. It is I who took the burden of your misdeeds upon my shoulders that you might become Lady Ferringhall. It is I who am persecuted by the man who calls himself your husband." Annabel shivered a little and looked around her. "He does not come here," she exclaimed, quickly. "He spends hours of every day on the pavement below," Anna answered calmly. "I have been bearing this--for your sake. Shall I send him to Sir John?" Annabel was white to the lips, but her anger was not yet spent. "It was your own fault," she exclaimed. "He would never have found you out if you had not personated me." "On the contrary," Anna whispered quietly, "we met in a small boarding-house where I was stopping." "You have not told me yet," Annabel said, "how it is that you have dared to personate me. To call yourself 'Alcide'! Your hair, your gestures, your voice, all mine! Oh, how dared you do it?"