“It seems that Margherita’s step-father--Nesta’s father, of course,--who was an Englishman, treated his wife extremely badly, and Margherita, who had adored her mother, never forgave him and hated all Englishmen in consequence. At least, that was what Nesta told Blaise, and it seems quite probable. Italians are a hot-blooded race, you know, and very vindictive and revengeful. Of course, these Valdis were of no particular family--that was where the trouble began. Nesta was just a rather second-rate, though extraordinarily beautiful girl, suddenly elevated to a position which she was not in the least fitted to fill. It didn’t take a month for the glamour to wear off--and for Blaise to see her as I saw her. He came to his senses to find himself married to a bit of soulless, passionate flesh and blood. Oh, Jean! If I could only have been there--in Italy, to have saved him from it all!” Jean hardly heeded that instinctive mother-cry. She was keyed up to know the end of the story. She felt as though she must scream if Lady Anne were long about the telling. “Go on,” she said, forcing herself to speak quietly. “Tell me the rest.” “The rest had the Tormarin temper for its corner-stone. Nesta was an utterly spoilt child, and a coquette to her very finger-tips. She tossed dignity to the winds, and there were everlasting scenes and quarrels. Then, one day, Blaise came in and found her entertaining a man whom he had forbidden the house. I don’t know what he said to her--but I can guess, poor child! He horsewhipped the man, and he must have frightened Nesta half out of her mind. That evening she ran away from Staple--Nick and I, of course, were living at the Dower House then--and after months of fruitless enquiry I had a letter from Margherita Valdi telling me that she had been found drowned. She had evidently made her way back to Italy, hoping to reach her sister, and then, in a fit of despair, committed suicide.” “Oh, poor Blaise! How awful for him!” exclaimed Jean, horror-stricken. For the moment her own individual point of view was swept away in a flood of sympathy for Tormarin.