They knew him there, knew him as she had never known him--free, unrestrained, without that mask which, to a certain extent, he had necessarily worn in her presence. In his intercourse with them he had been untrammelled, with no lurking fear of what might happen some day; no dodging demon at his side suggesting the end, the separation that he knew must unavoidably come. And she had sat by, ignorant of all that was consuming their hearts' cores, which, had she been able to discuss it with them, would have proved to be her own deepest, most cherished, most pertinacious source of thought. They?--who were they? How many of them had known her Lionel?--how many of them had cared for him? Lady Beauport and Lord Caterham, of course--but of the others? Geoffrey himself had never known him. No; thank God for that! The comparison between her old lover and her husband which she had so often drawn in her own mind had never, could never have occurred to him. Geoffrey's only connection with the Beauport family had been through Annie Maurice. Ah! Annie Maurice!--the heiress now, whose sudden acquisition of wealth and position they were all talking of--she had not seen Lionel in the old days; and even if she had, it had been slight matter. But Margaret's knowledge of the world was wide and ample, and it needed very little experience--far less indeed than she had had--to show her what might have been the effect had those two met under the existent different circumstances. For Margaret knew Lionel Brakespere, and read him like a book. All her wild infatuation about him,--and her infatuation about him was wilder, madder than it had ever been before--all the length of time since she lost him,--all the long, weary, deadening separation, had not had the smallest effect on her calm matured judgment. She knew that he was at heart a scoundrel; she knew that he had no stability of heart, no depth of affection. Had not her own experience of him taught her that? had not the easy, indifferent, heartless way in which he had slipped out of her knotted arms, leaving her to pine and fret and die, for all he cared, shown her that? She had a thorough appreciation of his worship of the rising sun,--she knew how perfectly he would have sold himself for wealth and position; and yet she loved him, loved him through all!