"If you are sick, or otherwise engaged, she will readily excuse you," Edith said. "I do not want to be excused," said Una, as she hurried to the presence of the gentle governess. But that day she found books and lessons irksome in the extreme. Her heart and mind were full of the strange facts she had heard last night from the lips of Sylvie. She who had been wedded, yet no wife, for almost a year had only now found out that she was unloved, and the humiliation weighed her almost to the earth, in spite of her brave, sensible resolve to win Eliot yet, and make him forget that once he had sighed for Ida Hayes. She longed to throw down the irksome books and cry out to the gentle, placid Mrs. Wilson: "Away with books! Teach me the only lesson that interests me now--how to win my husband's heart!" She beat back the yearning impulse to claim this gentle woman's sympathy with bitter pride. "Shall I complain of him to her, to any one?" she thought. "Ah, no; it lies between us two and God! The bitter secret shall never pass my lips! Secret, did I say? Alas! it is known to them all, has been known all along. How they must pity me, the unloved wife, the perhaps unwelcome intruder in the home to which they had hoped he would bring Ida Hayes a loved and loving bride!" It did not look as if she was unwelcome when at the close of study hours Maud and Edith burst into the room. "Una, we are just dying to get hold of you!" Edith cried. "We want to talk about the theater-party. What are we going to wear, for I'm sure we can not afford new dresses." "And we want to look as nice as possible, for Ida and Sylvie will do all they can to outshine us," added Maud. "Of course they have lots of new things, so Edith and I have just made up our minds to have some of the pretty things in mamma's trunks upstairs. She gave them to us long before she died. So if you won't be offended, Una, dear, come with us, and we'll find something that we can fix over for the theater-party." "What is it all about?" queried gentle Mrs. Wilson, and Edith returned: "A popular actress who left the stage almost sixteen years ago has returned to it again, and they say she is as young, lovely, and spirited as when she retired to marry a rich aristocrat. All paint, of course, but Sylvie is just wild to have us go and see her play on Thursday night." CHAPTER XXXIV. Una went with the girls to ransack the trunks, but she steadily declined to accept any of the finery they spread out on the bed and chairs. "Eliot offered to give me a new dress this morning, and I told him I had plenty," she said, "so if I took any of these, he would think I had deceived him." "You dear little conscientious thing, you are well named Una," cried Edith, gayly. "But Eliot would never know, and, my dear, this rose-colored satin with lace flounces would make up lovely for you, and be so becoming." "It is too fine for me," Una answered, shrinkingly.