"I am a woman in bitter trouble," she answered. "I stand before you no better than a beggar. If it were not that I might still be of use to my lord, I would pray to die." "You are very weary," said Mary, with instant kindness. She drew her to seat herself on the long brocade couch—"Poor soul, I doubt that you are very sad!" Lady Sunderland looked at her wildly, then burst into anguished tears. "Ah, Madam!" cried Mary, bending over her, "I do beseech you take comfort." The Countess kept her face hidden, and her bowed shoulders heaved. "Nothing shall happen to the Earl, I dare swear." Lady Sunderland looked up. "Forgive me. I have not wept for so long. My son, my eldest son, is recently dead in Paris in an obscure duel—I hoped so much from him—once. Dead! Indeed I know not what I say." Mary shuddered. She recalled the Lady Sunderland of former days—brilliant, ambitious, superbly happy—a woman she herself had looked up to with a half awe as a personification of all the allurement of that splendid life she had left so early; she thought of all the unscrupulous intrigues, bargains, deceits, buyings and sellings this lady had helped her shameless husband with; the extraordinary double game they had played so long and successfully. But looking at this, the sudden end, penniless, bereaved exile, she felt no scorn, only a great pity; for the Countess had been faithful, and Mary thought that a great virtue in a woman. "I did not know that of Lord Spencer," she said gently. "I am very sorry; it is sad for you." The Countess dried her eyes swiftly. "I do not know why I should weep for him," she answered half fiercely; "he went near to break my heart. He was what they call worthless." She paused, and Mary stood silent; she was not unaware that the sharpest prick to Lord Sunderland’s magnificence had ever been that poor useless rake, his son, nor ignorant of the Countess’s long endeavour to make some show before the world in this matter, and now that broken pride opened its heart to her, a stranger, the sadness of it held her mute. Lady Sunderland’s wet strained eyes looked past the fireglow to the bare boughs and cloudy heavens framed in the tall window. "It is much better that he is gone," she continued. "Yet—last night I went on the deck of the packet and it was all so dark and cold, not a star, and the waves sounding, but not to be seen, and I remembered how little he was once, and how warm in my arms, and then methought he was somewhere crying for me in the chill blackness ... abroad—in a poor lodging with no friend." She wrung her hands together with irrepressible horror. "My God!" she cried, "there’s a way to die!" Mary caught her arm. "You must not think of it like that; there is another side to it—God is very merciful, I know nothing—but in heaven there is great pity for all of us." The Countess turned and stared at her a moment, with her handkerchief to her lips, then said unsteadily—