Now Stella Mayne was one of those complex creatures, quite out of the range of a truthful woman's understanding--a creature who could be candour itself--could gush and prattle with the innocent expansiveness of a child, so long as there was nothing she particularly desired to conceal--yet who could lie with the same sweet air of childlike simplicity, when it served her purpose--lie with the calm stolidity, the invincible assurance, of an untruthful child. She did not answer Christabel's question immediately, but looked at her thoughtfully for a few seconds, wondering how much of her history this young lady knew, and to what extent lying might serve. She had slipped from her knees to a sitting position on the Persian hearthrug, her thin, semi-transparent hands clasped upon her knee, the triple circlet of gems flashing in the low sunlight. "Why did we part?" she asked, shrugging her shoulders. "I hardly know. Temper, I suppose. He has not too good a temper, and I--well, I am a demon when I am ill--and I am often ill." "You keep his portrait on your table," said Christabel. "Keep it? Yes--and round my neck," answered Stella, jerking a gold locket out of her loose gown, and opening it to show the miniature inside. "I have worn his picture against my heart ever since he gave it me--during our first Italian tour. I shall wear it so when I am dead. Yes--when he is married, and happy with you, and I am lying in my grave in Hendon Churchyard. Do you know I have bought and paid for my grave?" "Why did you do that?" "Because I wanted to make sure of not being buried in a cemetery--a city of the dead--streets and squares and alleys of gravestones. I have chosen a spot under a great spreading cedar, in a churchyard that might be a hundred miles from London--and yet it is quite near here, and handy for those who will have to take me. I shall not give any one too much trouble. Perhaps, if you will let him, Angus may come to my funeral, and drop a bunch of violets on my coffin." "Why do you talk like that?" "Because the end cannot be very far off. Do you think I look as if I should live to be a grandmother?" The hectic bloom, the unnatural light in those lovely eyes, the transparent hands, and purple-tinted nails, did not, indeed, point to such a conclusion. "If you are really ill why do you go on acting?" asked Christabel, gently. "Surely the fatigue and excitement must be very bad for you." "I hardly know. The fatigue may be killing me, but the excitement is the only thing that keeps me alive. Besides, I must live--thirty pounds a week is a consideration." "But--you are not in want of money?" exclaimed Christabel. "Mr. Hamleigh would never----"