“Your Royal Highness,” went on Felicity Falcon, her sweet voice hoarse, “since it is your pleasure to know it, my name is Gwenlian Morgan. I am the wife----” A spasm crossed her face. She caught her breath, and went on: “I married one Evan Morgan, a Welsh preacher. Ours has been a great love; but with him God was always first. He believed he had a call to London. We left the fair hills and our cottage for these dreadful streets. He failed. He fell into a decline. We had hardly any money left. He could work no more, and he would not take charity. I had to earn for him. How? I had to earn much and quickly or he would die. There was only one way, and that way anathema to him. To his pure and lofty mind the stage was always ruin and damnation!” Again there was a brief silence. The equerry tried to whisper to Mr. Sheridan, but that good-hearted gentleman gave him an angry scowl. The Prince sat breathing hard, his eyes fixed, his mouth slightly open. “There was but one way in which I could earn much and quickly. I took it. I took it in secret. I began low. Fortune favoured me. I was noticed behind the scenes by one whose notice meant advancement. Yes, sir”--she flashed a dark look at the equerry, who murmured a name--“my Lord Harborough was a generous patron; and then all came easy. At home I had but to lie. Good heavens, how I lied and plotted and contrived and deceived! But what did anything matter? There was no crime save unfaithfulness to my Beloved that I would not have committed for his sake. I told him I had inherited a fortune. I kept him almost from the first in comfort. When I was able to hire this house I told him I had sold out funds to do so. He believed me. He trusted me. He would as soon have thought of doubting an angel, as of doubting me. And so I--hoodwinked him. It was the easier that he had to keep to his bed. My one servant, his nurse, deaf and silent, never pried into my comings and goings. She believed, like him, that they were accounted for by the chapel meetings and mission-work; by necessary relaxation and repose. I went in and out of this house at night by the mews at the back. No one ever saw me enter. I took care of that. To-day--to-day the doctor came. He filled me with more hope than ever before. ‘Take him to Italy,’ he said. ‘And ’twill be a cure!’ With four thousand pounds in the bank----” She stopped so suddenly that Pamela cast an arm about her, fearing she might fall; but she clasped a rigid strength. Mr. Sheridan raised his quizzing glass to stare at the actress’s countenance; into her pale cheeks a fierce colour had risen. She was amazingly beautiful. “And so, my dear Miss Falcon--my dear Mrs. Morgan,” he cried curiously, “you took the favourable moment of confessing your subterfuge, your heroic subterfuge, to your pious husband! How did he bear it? A Welshman and a chapel man! I trust it was not a shock.” Her eyes turned upon him as if she were bereft of the power of understanding.