“By Jove, how beautiful she is,” he cried. “Mother was right, she has developed into a beauty of the rarest type. She is not like Sibyl or the rest; charming as they are there is something rarer yet about this girl my mother chose for my wife. What if I should suddenly fall in love with the fate I have raved against for long years! But, heavens, how angry Sibyl would be if she knew that I was actually thinking tenderly of my lovely and reserved young wife? What a pity that fate ever threw that little enchantress in my way again!” He went out on the terrace alone and smoked a cigar in a fierce, irritated fashion, gazing up now and then at the tall, dark front of the house, and wondering idly which was his wife’s window, while all alone at the darkened casement of her room, Nina watched him with heavy, woeful eyes. She had gone up to her dressing-room and hastily huddled out of Kitty’s keen sight a grey traveling-dress and cloak, that she had laid out to don that night. “I shall not need them yet,” she said. “How strange that instead of my going away to seek my rival to-night, she is coming here under my own roof to-morrow. He will actually bring her here, that fair woman he loves, and they will flaunt their love under my wretched eyes and madden me with misery, until I give him the freedom he craves, either through the horrible mire of a divorce court, or--or, by the straight road of death! I have sworn an oath, and I shall have to keep it. Oh, mamma, did you realize what you were doing when you bade me give your son all my love and all my life, and to try always to secure his happiness? I do not believe you even dreamed that you were pledging me to a terrible sacrifice!” Very different are Miss Drusilla’s thoughts and feelings, for she is scolding vigorously in the house-keeper’s room over the influx of unexpected guests to-morrow. “It don’t make one bit of difference to me, Miss Strangemore,” that worthy person placidly assures her. “I prides myself on never being taken at a disadvantage! All will be in readiness for your friends, ma’am.” “Don’t call them _my_ friends!” snaps the irate spitfire. “They’re no friends of mine, let me tell you; and I think they might have stayed away for decency’s sake, until Talbot Strangemore got acquainted with his wife. It’s outrageous, I say, crowding into Selwyn Heights at such a delicate time!” Perhaps Talbot Strangemore thinks the same thoughts, pacing up and down the terrace before the tall, dark house, idly admiring its splendid proportions, and all unconscious of the brooding shadow of a coming tragedy. CHAPTER IX. JEALOUSY. “Talbot, where can I see you alone a moment? I am so anxious to speak to you privately. I hurried with my dressing purposely, so that I might have you to myself before the others come down!”