Mrs. Tredethlyn’s mystification was depicted upon her countenance, which at first expressed only her complete bewilderment; then a chilling expression came over her face, a scornful smile curved her lip, and she looked at her rival with her head poised as haughtily as ever Eleanor’s could have been when she offered Lord Clifford’s daughter that agreeable choice between the bowl and the dagger. “Oh, I see,” she thought; “this person is trying to disarm my suspicions by her cool impertinence.” “It was so kind of you to come,” murmured Rosamond, timidly. She was beginning to feel rather afraid of this haughty lady, who made no response to her warm greeting. “I did not think that I should see you so soon.” “No, I dare say not,” answered Mrs. Tredethlyn; “I should scarcely imagine that you expected to see me at all.” Rosamond, otherwise Susan, clasped her hands and flushed crimson to the roots of her hair. “Ah, then, you too are unkind, like my father,” she cried piteously. “You do not believe what Francis told you.” Maude was almost too indignant to remark that piteous accent. It was not a gentle creature in distress that she saw. Jealousy looks through a medium that distorts the simplest objects into evil and threatening shapes. Mrs. Tredethlyn imagined that she beheld a shameless adventuress, who sought to disarm her justifiable suspicions by social histrionics. “By what right do you call my husband by his Christian name?” she asked, indignantly. “By what right!” stammered Susan, alarmed by the angry tones in which the question had been asked. “What else should I call him? I have called him Francis all my life, except when we were children, and then I called him Frank. Oh, he has been so good to me, Mrs. Tredethlyn! and he knows that the marriage was a real one. Oh, pray, pray don’t look so coldly at me! don’t doubt my word and his. I am as true and pure a wife as you are, though I have no husband’s arm to lean upon, though even the name my husband gave me may be a false one.” Maude stared at the earnest face in new bewilderment. Not even jealousy could distort the expression of that face into anything but innocence. “What does it all mean?” she cried at last; “who and what are you?” “Susan Turner, Oliver Tredethlyn’s daughter and Francis Tredethlyn’s cousin,” answered Susan, considerably puzzled in her turn; “who else could you suppose me to be, Mrs. Tredethlyn? Surely Francis told you all about me, or you could never have known where to find me.” “No, he told me nothing,” exclaimed Maude; and then she pounced suddenly upon poor astonished Susy, and kissed her as she had never in all her life kissed any one before. “Oh, you dear!” she cried; “oh, you darling! To think that you should be only his cousin after all, when I thought that--when I was wicked enough to think----” Mrs. Tredethlyn did not say what she had thought, but bestowed another shower of kisses upon Susan.