"Yes, for the money," she interrupted frantically. "He wanted the money, as my father wanted the title, and so he must take me, hating me as I hate him--and your brother!" She stood to her full height, pressing her hands on her bosom. "I think my soul was sold, too, for what is this but sin?" "Where is Rose?" cried Marius thickly, and made for the door. But she was very quickly in his way. "What are you doing?" she asked desperately. "He must not know--this must be between us--always. You must go, before anyone discovers." She lowered her voice and glanced furtively as if knowing herself in the house of strangers and enemies. "If you leave now," she continued hurriedly, "to-night, at once, we need not meet in public." Marius did not gather the sense of what she said. This was not Aspasia of the Luxembourg gardens, with romantic eyes and shy of speech. "I must find Rose," he repeated thickly. The Countess leant across the door, grasping the handle. Her senses were on the alert. She knew Rose was only a few yards away, he and his two kinswomen; she divined it could only be a matter of moments before someone entered the library. "What do you want to find him for?" she demanded. It was noticeable that she gave her husband neither his name nor his title. She beat the fingers of her left hand up and down on her breast. "Why do you stare like that? How slow you are!" His eyes rested on her wedding-ring, the only ornament she wore. "All is so changed," he said drearily. He sat down at the table. "How foolish we were." He could not avoid uttering what was his one thought--how foolish they had been. He had imagined that he had loved Aspasia, and it had been beautiful; now this woman said, "I am Aspasia," and the delicate fabric of the romance was shattered. Soft words with a fair stranger beneath the fluttering leaves was another matter to this scene with Rose's wife in Rose's house. The whole thing grew distasteful, almost ugly. He stared at the Countess, and it beat in his brain that she was a stranger to him; he did not know her in the least--only her face, her voice---- She, on her side, was sharply observing him. "Perhaps you _didn't_ care," she said, "after all. Well, you gave me reason to think so. We were to have been married in the autumn." "I kept faith!" he cried. "But you--what have you made of it all?" A frightened look settled in her intent eyes. "I do not know; I feel I have done something terrible. It was not to be avoided--in any way escaped. _I_ also kept faith in my heart. What had I for him but hate?" It jarred on Marius that she put this into words. "We must not blame Rose," he said, with pale lips. "He did not know. Had you told him----" "I had no chance. Was he likely to have listened? He wanted the money." That stung the Earl's brother.