Hammond at first refused to listen. Belle had assured him with her own lips that she had never even seen the man with whom her name was coupled. But Despencer’s statement compelled him to action. Wondering, reluctant, and dismayed, he allowed himself to be dragged into the gallery. Both men as they entered glanced eagerly in the direction of the window. The next instant both stopped abruptly, and their eyes met. Despencer’s filled with malicious triumph, Hammond’s with the deepest mortification. The curtains were closed. Who was behind them? “Now, if you wish to know the truth, draw that curtain,” the tempter whispered. Then he walked slowly out of the gallery, watching Hammond as he went. Left to himself, Hammond stood in silent anguish, his gaze fixed on the velvet folds which spared him the sight of the falsehood of the woman he loved. Fresh from his betrothal to Victoria, he had forgotten her already, so much greater was the bitterness of finding that his love was misplaced than the bitterness of having it rejected. He thought he could hear that Belle should not love him, but he found he could not bear that she should love another. Face to face with that curtain, there seemed to be no more room for doubt. Despencer might not be a man of honor, but he could not, he dared not, have brought Hammond there unless he were sure of the result. What inducement had Despencer to lie? None. And Belle? Alas! it was evident that she had only too much. He took a step towards the curtain, and then drew back. What right had he to lift it? What right had he, the promised husband of Lady Victoria, to test the faith of the woman who had just refused his hand? Reason bade him go away, satisfied with the silent testimony of that damning screen. But reason is a mere lawyer, whose client is passion. John Hammond could no more leave that gallery without drawing the curtain than the steel can detach itself from the magnet. It did not take long to reason himself into the belief that to go away now would be disloyalty to Belle herself; it would be to accept Despencer’s word against hers without inquiry. He stepped forward again, and his hand was stretched out towards the curtain, when he was arrested by the entrance of a man at the opposite door. Captain Mauleverer had taken advantage of his dismissal by the marchioness to wander off to a nook at the top of his uncle’s house and indulge in a quiet smoke. Returning through the gallery, where he had half hoped to find Victoria waiting for him, he was surprised to find himself in the presence of Hammond. “Why, Hammond, what are you doing here all by yourself?” he exclaimed as he came up. Hammond drew back a few steps from the curtain. “What am I doing?” He raised his voice and glanced towards the purple folds as though he would have looked through them to see the effect of his words. “I am wondering why it is that we men are ever fools enough to expect truth from the lips of a woman.”