“Let me make an end of my story as quickly as I can,” Paul said, in subdued tones. He heartily wished now he had let it still remain untold until such a time as he might be driven to confess it. “La Lucia, after storming and raging, registered a mighty oath never to see my face again if she could help herself, never to carry into effect the vows she had made at the altar--to hold herself free as if she had never seen me. I can hardly tell you what she said. She ironically thanked me for having helped her to escape from one kind of slavery, though she found herself trammeled in another, and for my care of her during the journey, and for the consideration and delicate courtesy I had shown her in her unprotected state, and then swept out of the room. The next thing I heard of my lady wife was that she had carried herself and all her belongings off from the hotel. I never heard of her again until Europe was ringing with her name and fame.” “Her name?” repeated Mrs. Desfrayne mechanically. “The name I had first known her under.” “And that was?” “Lucia Guiscardini.” Mrs. Desfrayne sprang from her seat, and began pacing to and fro in her turn. “Oh! it is too much--too much!” she cried. “Ungrateful, wicked, unloving son, is it thus you have returned the deep, unwearying affection I have ever cherished for you?” “The most bitter reproaches you can level at me can never equal in intensity those which I have heaped on my own head,” Paul replied. “You must have been mad to let yourself be entrapped in this way,” Mrs. Desfrayne went on. “I can scarcely believe it is true. You are, then, really bound to this--this singing woman who cares nothing for you, who seems to disdain you and all belonging to you. Oh! it is incredible. And what about Miss Turquand?” “I know not,” answered Paul wearily. “I wish to Heaven I had never seen or heard of the eccentric old fogy who chose to imagine himself under some debt of gratitude to me, for then----” “Folly!” angrily interrupted his mother. “Better wish you had never seen this woman who owns you--or that you had not been so----” She shrugged her shoulders with an expression indescribable. There was a brief pause. “It would be as ridiculous as it would be undignified on my part to display any resentment against you,” Mrs. Desfrayne resumed. “Of course, you had a right to please yourself: though married in haste, you are repenting at leisure. But what are you going to do?” “In what way?” “Good heavens! so long as that woman lives, there is not a ray of happiness for you.” “I know it. It is a heavy penalty to pay for those few weeks of forgetfulness, of lunacy, of fever; but hardly so heavy to bear as the loss of the love and esteem of the only woman in the world I ever loved, or am likely to love.” “Whom are you talking about?” hastily demanded Mrs. Desfrayne, a new spasm of jealousy seizing her heart. But Paul would not answer.