Then, when more than ten minutes have elapsed, Lord Delaval’s voice rouses her into consciousness of her whereabouts and her supreme folly. “Well!” he says, “do you think we have had enough of this garden? The dew is falling fast, and I am unsentimental enough to be liable to rheumatism.” Zai stops short and faces him. “I beg your pardon, Lord Delaval. I--I really forgot you were with me. Let us go back at once, of course.” She has braced up her courage to meet the grand ordeal--the ordeal which she believes will lay her young life in ashes. It is to look Carl Conway in the face, like Tennyson’s Lady Clara Vere de Vere, to slay her unfaithful lover with a glance. Thinking of this, she hurries on, oblivious again of Lord Delaval’s proximity, until they reach the house. Just as they are on the point of entering, a hand pushes back the lace curtains of the long French casement that gives out on this portion of the lawn, and lies diagonally, as it were, with the path leading up to the entrance, and without any reason the two pause side by side a moment. Two figures--a man and a woman, stand well relieved against the background of brilliant light. The woman is very tall and slender, and clad in amber flowing drapery, with a blood red pomegranate flower burning vividly against her massive coronet of black hair. The man is also tall, and wears a fair, boyish appearance. The two voices float out distinctly enough on the stillness outside. “It is growing very late, and Delaval and your sister, or Beatrice and Benedick, as you call them, have not put in an appearance yet,” Sir Everard Aylmer remarks presently, glancing at a tiny enamelled watch he wears. “Doubtless they have lagged on the lawn for a sociable quarrel. Beatrice and Benedick had a weakness that way, you know,” and Gabrielle Beranger laughs somewhat artificially. “According to the hackneyed old proverb, ‘the quarrels of lovers are the renewal of love.’” “Delaval and your sister must be a most interesting pair of lovers,” drawls the Baronet with a smile. “Can you tell me, Miss Beranger, why quarrelling should be considered an incipient sign of love?” “_Dieu_, how should I know? I never take the trouble to quarrel with anyone, and certainly was never in love.” Gabrielle speaks out sharply, and at this moment she believes completely in her assertion, for the knowledge that Lord Delaval is wandering about a dew-lit lawn, with Zai’s lovely face at his side, and a white hand laid on his arm, makes her feel as if she positively hates him with all the force with which she is capable of hating as well as loving. That hydra-headed monster, yclept Jealousy, just tears her in twain, and it is with the utmost difficulty she keeps up a calm appearance and a desultory conversation with the man whom Lady Beranger has consigned to her kind devices with a--