“Oh, Virgie Mason, you ought to be ashamed of yourself! How can you even hint such a thing? I encourage a married man’s folly and misplaced affection! you know me better than that although you talk to me so! I wish I had never allowed myself to be persuaded to come to this dreadful place!” wept Mrs. St. Alban, hiding her face in her tiny lace handkerchief. “I thought that you were the first one that proposed coming,” said Helen Starr, rather drily, but the wounded widow was saved the necessity for a reply by the entrance of the gentlemen. Candid Virgie immediately blurted out the whole story of the scene that had passed. They all looked very grave when they heard it. Talbot’s infatuation for the beautiful widow had long been patent to all, and they had heretofore made a jest of it: Now that they had come to Selwyn Heights and seen the beautiful young neglected wife and heard her indignant plaint the affair suddenly assumed a different aspect. “We should not have come here at all. It was an unwarrantable intrusion,” said Duke Cameron, who was the prince of good fellows, immensely rich, and as generous as a king to his friends. “I think we must all go away in the morning.” “That is just what I was saying before you came in,” cried the widow, eagerly, “I have been cruelly insulted by poor Talbot’s wife, and if you all will not go with me, I shall go alone! I do think however, that that girl ought to apologize to me for what she said. I am not to blame for her husband loving me! We were engaged when he was a student at college, and how could I help it if he went on loving me after I threw him over for one whom I liked better than----” Her torrent of words was interrupted by the sudden entrance of Talbot himself. He came up to them pale, but composed. “I can guess what you are talking of,” he said, seeing how silent they all suddenly became. “I am very sorry for all that has happened this evening. I hope no one will blame my wife. She is but a child in her innocence and ignorance of the world. I take the blame upon myself. I have neglected her, forgotten her, and acted a dastardly part for which the devotion of my whole future can scarce atone.” He looked so shamed and contrite that every one was sorry for him but Sibyl, at whom he did not look while he was speaking, for he well knew that his words would make her bitterly angry. Virgie Mason cried out, impulsively: “I love your sweet Nina dearly, and I do not blame her one bit! Please tell us if she is any better, Mr. Strangemore?” “I left her with her maid and my aunt. They think she will soon be better,” he replied, gratefully. CHAPTER XII. AN INTERVIEW DECLINED. He did not tell her that Miss Drusilla had sent him out of the room with the bitter words: