She clutched convulsively at the arms of her chair. “He told me!” she said in a very low voice. Then, looking up pitifully: “Do you know?” she asked in her quaint way. “It was a mock marriage. He had done it and thought no shame, because it was so with my mother. Oh!” Her beautiful eyes flashed, and for the first time since I had met Ysola Camber I saw the real Spanish spirit of the woman leap to life. “He did not know me. Perhaps I did not know myself. That night, with no money, without a ring, a piece of lace, a peseta, anything that had belonged to him, I went with Ah Tsong. We made our way to a half-sister of my father’s who lived in Puerto Principe, and at first--she would not have me. I was talked about, she said, in all the islands. She told me of my poor father. She told me I had dragged the name of de Valera in the dirt. At last I made her understand--that what everyone else had known, I had never even dreamed of.” She looked up wistfully, as if thinking that we might doubt her. “Do you know?” she whispered. “I know--oh! I know!” said Val Beverley. I loved her for the sympathy in her voice and in her eyes. “It is very, very brave of you to tell us this, Mrs. Camber.” “Yes? Do you think so?” asked the girl, simply. “What does it matter if it can help Colin? “This aunt of mine,” she presently continued, “was a poor woman, and it was while I was hiding in her house--because spies of Senor Menendez were searching for me--that I met--my husband. He was studying in Cuba the strange things he writes about, you see. And before I knew what had happened--I found I loved him more than all else in the world. It is so wonderful, that feeling,” she said, looking across at Val Beverley. “Do you know?” The girl flushed deeply, and lowered her eyes, but made no reply. “Because you are a woman, too, you will perhaps understand,” she resumed. “I did not tell him. I did not dare to tell him at first. I was so madly happy I had no courage to speak. But when”--her voice sank lower and lower--“he asked me to marry him, I told him. Nothing he could ever do would change my love for him now, because he forgave me and made me his wife.” I feared that at last she was going to break down, for her voice became very tremulous and tears leapt again into her eyes. She conquered her emotion, however, and went on: “We crossed over to the States, and Colin’s family who had heard of his marriage--some friend of Señor Menendez had told them--would not know us. It meant that Colin, who would have been a rich man, was very poor. It made no difference. He was splendid. And I was so happy it was all like a dream. He made me forget I was to blame for his troubles. Then we were in Washington--and I saw Señor Menendez in the hotel!