"Who is it?" she muttered, reading again, "La Sylphide. Some French creature, dwelling in that nest of infamy, Tilborough. Why! Oh, great heavens! That wretched racing woman--that widow! She must have been coming here to see him this morning when we passed. Oh, I see it all now. The telegram--dated yesterday--he did not join her according to her request, and she had the daring effrontery to come after him here. That is it. `All found out at last!' What could be all found out at last? Oh--oh--oh!" Lady Lisle covered her face with her hands, the coloured paper crackling softly as it touched her temples, making her start as if it had stung her burning skin, and dash it down upon the carpet and stamp upon it in disgust. But it was a proof of her husband's infidelity, she thought, and she stooped and picked it up, wishing her fingers were the tongs, as she smoothed it out, doubled it, and held it ready for the interview about to take place. "And so I am not to be very hard I am to condone everything. Well," she added, with a bitter laugh which seemed to tear itself from her throbbing breast, "we shall see." She paused again, with her poor brain seeming to seethe with wildly jealous thoughts, every one garnished with cruel suspicions, and seeming to tell more and more against the culprit, till everything was in a whirl. But all the time she was suffering from the belief that she was seeing more and more clearly as the cruel moments glided on. "Yes, I see it all now," she cried passionately; "poor, weak, deluded, loving fool that I have been! Vile, treacherous wretch! Horrible creature! Yes, of course. A woman who is said to have refused offer after offer since her poor husband's death. La Sylphide--of course, as if I had not heard that she bought a portion of Hilton's stud when his horses were sold, and one was this Sylphide, whose name she dares to assume in her clandestine communications to him. Oh, how kind to me Fate has been! To think of it! I might have been a trusting victim for years--hoodwinked--blinded to their infamy. Ah! he shall find out what the weak, loving, confiding woman whom he has deceived can be." There was a very peculiar smile upon Lady Lisle's handsome face as she crossed to the fireplace, to be met by Khan, the Persian cat, who descended from his ottoman, stretched himself, and made ready to give himself a comforting electric rub against his mistress's silk dress, but to his astonishment was--not kicked, but thrust violently aside by a boot, to stand staring, while her ladyship continued her march. She did not rush, but went to the bell deliberately. "Yes, I will be firm and calm," she said, half-aloud, and the smile grew more strained and peculiar. It was such a look as Medea of old might have worn when a certain trouble of classic fame had arisen with a gentleman named Jason; but she dragged at the bell-handle in a way which brought Jane in a hurry to the room.