“Lord Montressor, you know so much of my life that I need but use a few words to inform you all you require to be told of its fatal, secret history. You are already aware that, at the age of seven years, I was sent to Paris, and placed at Madame L’Orient’s _Pensionnat des Demoiselles_, an establishment of the highest reputation, where I remained until I was fifteen years of age. It was when I had but just completed my fourteenth year that Victoire L’Orient, the only son of my teacher, was presented to me by his mother—” Here the voice of Estelle broke down, and she paused as if unable to proceed. Her companion waited a little while, and then said, encouragingly: “Speak freely, dear Stella.” “I am sure, Lord Montressor, that I do not mean to endeavor to shift the blame from my own shoulders to those of others, but at this distance of time I see clearly that Victoire L’Orient was introduced to me by his mother with sinister views—to ensnare, in fact, the heart, and win the hand of the wealthy English heiress. Victoire was ten years my senior, handsome, accomplished, insinuating, and, since the truth must be revealed, unprincipled; though of his moral turpitude I had no suspicion until it was too late! too late!” Again the voice of Stella sank, and she covered her face with her hands. “Compose yourself, dear love, and go on, that this may be finished, and your heart relieved.” “Without seeming to do so, Madame L’Orient fostered our acquaintance into friendship, if friendship could be said to exist between the deceiver and the deceived—into intimacy at least. Looking back now, I cannot understand the spell of fascination that was woven around me. Enough, alas, that I thought I loved Victoire, and was drawn step by step, first into an admission of my sentiments toward him; then into an engagement, subject to my parent’s consent; and, finally, without appealing to them, into a clandestine marriage.” Stella ceased and buried her face in her hands. Lord Montressor laid his hand on her head, and both were silent for a little while; after which, she resumed, in a voice of thrilling passion,— “Oh, yet think, in judging me, how young I was, how inexperienced I was, how fatally influenced, in what intriguing hands, and then how quickly and bitterly I repented.” “I do not _judge_ you, dear one; I only _wait_ to hear the end.”