“Since our wedding-morning,” Paul Desfrayne said, as she paused. “Not for three years. I suppose you have never seen me from that day until this moment?” “I have never seen or heard of you,” she angrily retorted, her eyes flashing ominously with premonitory lightning. “I did not wish to see you. I did not care to hear of you. I never asked a question about you. I should not care if we never met again; and I should be glad--_thankful_ to hear you were dead.” “I thank you,” said Paul Desfrayne, again lifting his hat. “If care, if regret, if bitter self-reproaches could have killed, I should not have troubled you to-day. It was, indeed, by no voluntary movement that I happened to see you this afternoon. But I believe I must have sought you ere long, to make some endeavor to arrive at a state of things somewhat less wearying, somewhat less wretched. My life is becoming a burden almost too heavy to be borne.” “You can see me any day you please to appoint,” Madam Guiscardini said angrily. “I have no desire either to seek or to avoid you. But I do not see what good can come of talking. Nothing can undo what has been done; nothing could roll back the waves of that pitiless time that has swept over you and over me.” “It remains to be seen what can be done, Madam Guiscardini,” Captain Desfrayne answered, moving quite close to her, and looking intently into her eyes. “Do you happen ever to have seen, heard of, or personally known, a man of the name of Gilardoni?” The color faded completely from the cheeks, lips, almost from the eyes, of the beautiful prima donna. CHAPTER XII. THE PRIMA DONNA’S HATE. Lucia Guiscardini clutched at the iron bar against which she was half-leaning, and glared into the face of her husband, as if she would read his innermost soul. “What does he know?” she whispered to herself. “How much does he know?” There was a dead silence for a few seconds. The signs of emotion caused by the name of the friendless wretch who had sought his help were not lost upon Captain Desfrayne. Madam Guiscardini was trying to rally her forces, and she could not reply in words. Paul Desfrayne repeated his inquiry in another form: “You do know him?” The half-terrified woman looked straight into his eyes--those honest eyes, so full of natural kindness and honor. Fear had blanched her cheeks and lips; shame, perhaps, now drove the roseate hues in a flood back again, as she answered, in a tolerably steady voice: “I do not. I have never heard of him.” “Ah! I don’t suppose my domestic affairs can possess any interest for you, madam. It is merely a piece of egotistical gossip to inform you that I have taken Leonardo Gilardoni into my service.” “Into your service?” The words were pronounced slowly, with obvious difficulty, and in a husky voice. Paul Desfrayne did not evidence, by the slightest sign, any triumph at the effect his unexpected shot had produced, but silently watched her face.