Christabel, quick to observe the woman whose existence had ruined her life, noted everything, from the small perfectly-shaped head--shaped for beauty rather than mental power--to the little arched foot in its pearl-coloured silk stocking, and grey satin slipper. For the first time in her life she beheld a woman whose chief business in this world was to look her loveliest, at all times and seasons, for friend or foe--for whom the perfection of costume was the study and delight of life--who lived and reigned by the divine right of beauty. "Pray sit down!" said Miss Mayne, with a careless wave of her hand--so small--so delicate and fragile-looking under the lace ruffle; "I am quite at a loss to guess to what I am indebted for the honour of this visit." She looked at her visitor scrutinizingly with those dark, too lustrous eyes. A hectic flush burned in her hollow cheeks. She had heard a good deal about this Miss Courtenay, of Mount Royal and Mayfair, and she came prepared to do battle. For some moments Christabel was dumb. It was one thing to have come into this young lioness's den, and another thing to know what to say to the lioness. But the straightness and purity of the girl's purpose upheld her--and her courage hardly faltered. "I have come to you, Miss Mayne, because I will not consent to be governed by common report. I want to know the truth--the whole truth--however bitter it may be for me--in order that I may know how to act." Miss Mayne had expected a much sharper mode of attack. She had been prepared to hear herself called scorpion--or viper--the pest of society--a form of address to which she would have been able to reply with a startling sharpness. But to be spoken to thus--gravely, gently, pleadingly, and with that sweet girlish face looking at her in unspeakable sorrow--was something for which she had not prepared herself. "You speak to me like a lady--like a good woman," she said, falteringly. "What is it you want to know?" "I have been told that Mr. Hamleigh--Angus Hamleigh--was once your lover. Is that true?" "True as the stars in heaven--the stars by which we swore to love each other to the end of our lives--looking up at them, with our hands clasped, as we stood on the deck of the steamer between Dover and Calais. That was our marriage. I used to think that God saw it, and accepted it--just as if we had been in church: only it did not hold water, you see," she added, with a cynical laugh, which ended in a hard little cough. "He loved you dearly. I can see that by the lines that he wrote in your books. I ventured to look at them while I waited for you. Why did he not marry you?" Stella Mayne shrugged her shoulders, and played with the soft lace of her _fichu_.