Lady Wereminster looked down ruefully at her glove. She had herself in hand again. "Good gracious, look at that. Split right across, my dear, with all this clapping. How my maid will scold me! She ran about all over London for them, trying to match the colour of my gown, and in the end we had to order them from Paris. As for that young man, he’s wonderful. The eighth wonder of the world—he must have escaped direct from Ephesus. I only hope his head won’t be turned after this. Why, Evelyn, what’s the matter?" She turned to a young King’s messenger at her side. "Here, help Mr. Brand to get his wife out of the box; she’s fainting." "Indeed, no; I’ve never fainted properly in all my life," said Evelyn. But she went outside obediently, summoning wit and courage to her aid. The air was cooler there, the platform hidden. She laughed and talked with the others while Brand waited on her assiduously, the image of a devoted husband, plying her in turn with smelling salts and scent, and Dora Beadon’s ever-ready fan. But her thoughts were turbulent; the scruple was no scruple now, but visible danger. A thousand dreads and terrors shaped themselves before her, ghosts of the past, and newer and more terrible phantoms. How far could she trust herself—how far trust him? Then, too, she had looked into a man’s heart that night—her husband’s; even she, who forgave much, would never forget what she had seen. Cummings was right, she must go at once; escape for a time at least from the hideous knowledge of what her husband was, more clearly defined now than ever before. And meantime and afterwards she must go on living with him, must show herself in public beside him as his possession, must return with him that very night to West Kensington to share his bed and board. She must suffer all, must bear all, insults, wrongs bodily and mental, bracing will and spirit, nerving her frailty to meet such horrors as convention called upon her to endure. This was life, this was duty; this stern uncompromising Catholic ideal of marriage, the Sacrament. It was not true, it was not true! Those whom God had joined together were joined for all eternity, but what had God had to do with her own and many another such marriage? *CHAPTER X* "Faith is required of thee ... not understanding."—THOMAS À KEMPIS.