“I believe you are deceiving me,” he said quietly. “Lying--as you have lied all through the piece. I’ll come and see this ‘wife’ you have waiting in the car for me”--grimly. He turned to Jean. “Keep up your courage, sweetheart” he said in a low voice full of infinite solicitude. “I believe the whole thing is a put-up job to separate us.” Jean smiled at him radiantly. She felt all at once very confident. In a few minutes this nightmarish story of a Nesta still alive and claiming her rights as Blaise’s wife would be proved a lie. Tormarin crossed the room and opened the door. “Now, Madame de Varigny--will you come with me?” The woman hesitated a moment. “Come,” insisted Blaise firmly. “Or--are you afraid, after all, to bring me face to face with my wife?” She shook her head. “No,” she said. “I am not afraid. It is only that I am so sorry--so sorry for the little Jean.” Her eyes, soft and dark and liquid as the eyes of a deer, sought Jean’s beseechingly. “I am so sorry,” she repeated. And passed, slowly,--almost unwillingly, it seemed, out of the room, followed by Tormarin. ***** Jean raised her head from Blaise’s shoulder and pushed back her hair, damp with perspiration, from her forehead. It seemed to her as though she had been down, down into some awful, limitless abyss of darkness from which she was now feebly struggling back to a painful consciousness of material things. A great sea had surged over her head, blotting out everything, and remained poised above her like a huge black arch, imprisoning her in the vast, deserted chaos in which she found herself wandering. Then--after a long time, it seemed--it had surged away again and she could distinguish Blaise’s face bent above her. “Then--then it’s true?” she said stupidly. Her voice sounded tiny, even to herself--a mere thread of sound. Blaise made no answer. He only held her a little closer in his arms. She supposed he hadn’t heard that thin little thread of voice. She must try again. “Is it true, Blaise? Is Nesta----” But somehow the last word wouldn’t come. She felt his arm jerk against her side. “Yes,” he said baldly. “It’s true. Nesta is alive. I’ve seen her.” Jean said nothing. She knew it--had known it all the time the arched wall of sea had kept her down in that awful black waste where there had been neither warmth nor sunshine but only bitter, freezing cold and lightless space. She clung a little closer to Blaise, like a frightened, exhausted child. “Heart’s beloved... little _dearest_ Jean...” She heard the wrung murmur of his voice above her head. Then suddenly, his arms tightening round her: “_My soul!_” The sunlight still slanted in through the windows, mellow and golden. A gay shout of laughter came up from the boat on the lake. The clock on the chimney-piece struck the hour--twelve slow, maddening strokes.