He stood, facing her, wondering at the extraordinary change in her, in her whole outward self. Her lovely face was pale and delicately beautiful as ever; but there was a new sternness about her sweet mouth, a look of absolute will in her dark, lustrous eyes which completely altered her. The clinging, tender girl had given place to the determined woman. “What—is it?” he asked. “What has happened?” “I—will tell you,” she began, evidently nerving herself for some disclosure, “just as it happened. You know that the prince”—(a look of pain contracted her features, and she blushed slightly as she said the word)—“my husband—liked the Pinewood. You know”—(she stopped and looked pleadingly up into his face)—“he liked you, liked our—friendship.” Some warning of what was to come arose in his mind. Ah! at last some good-natured friend—some meddler—had stepped in between him and his long-waited-for happiness in life. “Go on,” he said, in a hard tone, turning away from her. “The prince knows you, and he knows me,” she went on, proudly. “Well, I must tell you what happened. Last night, we—the prince, the count, and myself—we went to the new play. The prince did not like it, and went away to his club. I was sitting, not talking, the count was silent also, when I heard the voices of men (it was between the acts) in the next box. They spoke of you—and of me. What they said, was an infamy. Ah! do not look so, monsieur. You and I, we have a champion. The count, he did hear it also, and his anger against these men was great. He at once took me away down the staircase, procured my carriage, and I came back to my house. He told me he would avenge my honour—your honour. At eleven o’clock he came in. He told me he had challenged the man who said that infamy; that to-day they would fight, not here in England, but in France; and he said good-bye.... This” (she drew a case from her bosom), “this is the name of the man who separates us, monsieur, for I also have come to say good-bye. To-morrow I go home with the prince to Spain.” It was so abrupt, her calm yet confused statements were so unexpected, that for a moment Hugh’s head swam, he had to steady himself by placing his hand on the back of a chair. Then he took a slip of paper that she held out to him, and holding it near the lamp, saw in her handwriting— “_Colonel Roderick Pym._” As he gazed upon that familiar, distasteful name, he seemed to have known all along that this must come, this moment, this interview; that this was what had cast a shadow on their relations, and that this was _the end_. “Once,” he said, half to himself, half to her—it seemed to him as if her mind ought to recognise his thoughts without the outward expression of words,—“once I robbed this man of someone he loved; and now he robs me of _you_!”