Wrayson rose too with alacrity, and bowed his refusal. They recrossed the great hall and entered the drawing-room. Louise and Madame de Melbain were talking earnestly together in a corner, and from the look that the latter threw at him as they entered, Wrayson was convinced that in some way he was concerned with the subject of their conversation. It was a look deliberate and scrutinizing, in a sense doubtful, and yet not unkindly. Behind it all, Wrayson felt that there was something which he could not understand, there was something of the mystery in those dark sad eyes which seemed to pervade the whole atmosphere of the place and the lives of these people. Louise rose as he approached and motioned him to take her vacated place. "Madame de Melbain would like to talk to you for a few moments," she said quietly. "Afterwards will you come on to the terrace?" She swept away through the open window, and was at once followed by the Baron. Mademoiselle de Courcelles was playing very softly on a grand piano in an unseen corner of the apartment. Wrayson and his hostess were alone. She turned towards him with a faint smile. She spoke with great deliberation, but very clearly, and there was in her voice some hidden quality, indefinable in words, yet both musical and singularly attractive. "I shall not keep you very long, Mr. Wrayson," she said. "Louise has been talking to me about you. She is happy, I think, to have found a friend so chivalrous and so discerning." Wrayson smiled doubtfully as he answered. "It is very little that I have been able to do for her," he said. "My complaint is that she will not give me the opportunity of doing more." "You are too modest," Madame de Melbain said slowly. "Louise has told me a good deal. I think that you have been a very faithful friend." Wrayson bowed but said nothing. If Madame de Melbain had anything to say to him, he preferred to afford her the opportunity of an attentive silence. "Louise and I," Madame de Melbain continued, "were school friends. So you see that I have known her all my life. She has had her troubles, as I have! Only mine are a righteous judgment upon me, and hers she has done nothing to deserve. It is the burden of others which she fastens upon her back." Wrayson felt instinctively that his continued silence was what she most desired. She was speaking to him, but her eyes had travelled far away. It was as though she had come into touch with other and greater things. "Louise has not told me everything," she continued. "There is much that she will not confess. So it is necessary, Mr. Wrayson, that I ask you a question. Do you care for her?" "I do!" Wrayson answered simply. "You wish to marry her?" "To-morrow, if she would!" Madame de Melbain leaned a little forward. Her cheeks were still entirely colourless, but some spark of emotion glittered in her full dark eyes.