That cold, cruel and exquisitely chiselled face, whose likeness she had seen in Hugh’s rooms, had persistently assumed the identity of the woman for whose sake he was maintaining this silence. Even when she doubted the probability of her conjecture, the mysterious woman gradually revealed herself as the possessor of those ophidian eyes. They haunted her night and day. At last she doubted no longer. That was the woman; she had the face of one who could well see the man that loved her die before her eyes. As a forlorn hope Irene had set Gerard upon the track of this photograph. But it had disappeared from Hugh’s rooms. The disappearance, however, confirmed her certainty. There was a silence. Gerard went on with his dinner with the steadiness of a big-framed man who must eat. Irene pressed her hands over her burning eyeballs and leant forward on the table. She was suffering greatly. “Will you be able to bear it--if the worst comes?” she asked, after a while. “The worst hasn’t come yet,” he replied, “so it’s no good talking about it.” His brow clouded. There was a deep note in his wife’s voice that troubled him. She noticed the shadow. “I must not pain you, Gerard. I have only known Hugh for a few years. He has been your friend all your life. I can’t feel it all as you do.” “We don’t mend matters by dwelling upon them,” he said. “Besides--if there really is a woman----” “Oh, she must be in hell-fire now!” exclaimed Irene, fiercely--“a foretaste of the future.” “Yes,” he assented-grimly, “I shouldn’t like to be in her shoes.” Another silence. This time broken by the rattle and sudden drag of a carriage drawing up at the front door. A moment later the faint whirr of the electric bell downstairs. “Who can that be?” cried Irene, nervously. “Hush, dear! Let me listen.” She strained her ears, rather overwrought. “It is a woman--if it should be _the_ woman!” “Oh, nonsense, Renie,” said Gerard, with a man’s contempt for the feminine-fanciful. The maidservant entered. “Miss Hart, sir, wishes to speak to you.” “Miss Hart!” echoed Irene, with a shade of disappointment. Then succeeded quick scorn for the silliness of her fluttering hope, and natural interest in the visitor’s errand. “What can she want?” Gerard rose from the table and went out into the hall. It was a broad passage, softly carpeted, well warmed, furnished with oak settles and tables, here and there a great indoor plant, all brightly lighted from a great central cluster of electric globes. Minna was standing near the door. As Gerard approached, she advanced hurriedly to meet him--her veil off, her dark hair disordered over her forehead, her fashionable, befeathered and beribboned hat awry. “I have come--I want to----” She stopped dead. Stared at him open-mouthed. He was somewhat bewildered. “Yes?” he said, in lame enquiry. But she stood before him, trembling, uttering little sharp noises, like a terrier wistful to make his wants known, a horror in her eyes.