"Wait--for Heaven's sake wait," he murmured, with agitation. "I meant to break it to you--to explain----" "Give it to me," was all she said, and she shook his hand off impatiently. "Take it," said Stephen, with a tremor in his voice, "take it, and would to Heaven he had found some other messenger to bear it." Una took the letter and slowly but steadily carried it to another part of the room. There she stood and looked at it as if she were waiting to gain strength to open it. At last, after what seemed an eternity to Stephen, who was watching her in the glass, she broke open the envelope and read. Not twice, but thrice she read it, as if she meant to engrave every line on her heart, then she thrust the letter in her bosom and came back to the fire. Stephen turned, and with a low cry of alarm at sight of her altered face, moved toward her; but she put up her hand to keep him back. Altered! Not only in face but in bravery. A minute ago she had been a gentle-hearted, suffering, tortured girl, now she was an injured, deserted woman. "Thanks," she said, and the words fell like ice from her lips. "You spoke of an explanation. Will you tell me all you know, Stephen?" "Pray--not now," he murmured. "Tomorrow----" But she stopped him with a smile, awful to see in its utter despair and unnatural calmness. "Now, please." "It--it is too easy of explanation," said Stephen hoarsely. "He was tempted and he has fallen. He has bartered his honor for gold. Ask me no more." Una drew a long breath. "It is needless," she said. "You mean that he has left me, because I am poor, for Lady Earlsley, who can make him rich." Stephen turned away and sighed heavily. Una looked at him for a moment, then sat down at the tea-table. "You will have some tea?" she said calmly. Stephen started and looked at her. She had taken up the cream ewer with an unfaltering hand. Great Heaven! could it be possible that she did not feel it--that she did not really love Jack after all! A wild feeling of exultation rose within his heart. "Thank Heaven!" he murmured, "you can meet such treachery as it deserves--with scorn and contempt." She looked up at him with a strange smile on her cold, white face, and held out a tea-cup. But as he came near her, the cup dropped from her hand with a crash, and she fell back like one stricken unto death. * * * * * That same evening, Lady Bell stood in the drawing-room of Earl's Court. She was richly dressed, more richly than was usual with her; upon her white neck and arms sparkled the diamond set which she wore only on the most special occasions. The room was full. Four or five of the country families had been dining with her, and the buzz of conversation and sound of music rose and fell together confusedly. Surrounded, as usual, by a little circle of courtiers, she reigned, by the right of her beauty, her birth, and her wealth, a queen of society.