“Is it true, Blaise?” whispered Jean. Belief that some substance of terrible truth lay behind the Italian’s coolly uttered statements was beginning to lay hold of her. “Blaise, Blaise”--her voice rising a little--“say it isn’t true--tell her it isn’t true.” He looked at her speechlessly, but the measureless pain in his eyes answered her more fully, more convincingly than any words. “You see?” broke in Madame de Varigny triumphantly. “He cannot deny it! It was I who told him of her death and I who now tell him that she still lives. Listen to me, mademoiselle, and I will recount you how----” “No!” interrupted Jean proudly. “Whatever there may be for me to hear, I will hear it from Blaise--not from you.” She turned again to Tormarin. “Tell me everything, Blaise,” she said simply. He took her outstretched hands and drew her slowly towards him. No one, reading now the calm sadness, the stern imprint of endurance on his face, could have imagined it was that of the same man who, a few moments earlier, had been swept by such a tempest of uncontrollable anger. “Jean,” he said very gently and pitifully. “I’m afraid that what Madame de Varigny says may be true. I have no proof that it is not----” “Nor have you any proof that it is,” broke in Jean swiftly. She swung round on Madame de Varigny. “Where is your proof--where is your proof?” The Italian smiled. “Monsieur Tor-ma-rin will find his wife in my car. I bade the chauffeur wait with it at the lodge gate.” “Do you mean you have brought Nesta--_here?_” cried Blaise. “Why not?” replied Madame do Varigny, with a return to the same exasperating complacency with which she had originally described her whole scheme of revenge. “And--_here?_ Surely her husband’s house is the proper place to which to bring his wife?” “She cannot remain here,” said Blaise with decision. “No? For the moment that was not my idea. I brought her with me because I thought there could be no more convincing proof.” Blaise looked at her searchingly. He fancied he detected a false note in her voluble speech, and a new idea presented itself to him. Was the woman simply putting up a gigantic bluff? Or was it really Nesta, his wife, waiting in the car at the lodge gates? It occurred to him as perfectly feasible that it might be merely some woman whose remarkable resemblance to the dead girl had suggested to the Countess’s fertile brain the scheme that she should impersonate her. His mind seized eagerly upon the idea, bolstering it up with Madame de Varigny’s own admissions. “_I made little changes in her appearance_,” she had said. “_The colour of her hair, the way of dressing it_.” Probably she was relying on those “little changes,” and on the blurred recollection resulting from the length of time which had elapsed since Nesta’s death, to aid her in her plan of introducing as his wife a woman who closely resembled her. He felt morally sure of it, and the light of hope suddenly shone bravely.