The ladies rose from the table. As they passed into the drawing-room, a hand fell upon Mollie's shoulder. Glancing back, she saw the face of Mrs. Carl Walraven, lighted with a malicious smile. "Such a queer story, Mollie! And such an odd bride--undersized, very slender, golden ringlets--name, Mary! My pretty Cricket, I think I know where you passed that mysterious fortnight!" CHAPTER XI. A MIDNIGHT TETE-A-TETE. Mollie Dane sat alone in her pretty room. A bright fire burned in the grate. Old Mme. Walraven liked coal-fires, and would have them throughout the house. It was very late--past midnight--but the gas burned full flare, its garish flame subdued by globes of tinted glass, and Mollie, on a low stool before the fire, was still in all the splendor of her pink silk dinner-dress, her laces, her pearls. Mollie's considering-cap was on, and Mollie's dainty brows were contracted, and the rosebud month ominously puckered. Miss Dane was doing what she did not often do--thinking--and the thoughts chasing one another through her flighty brain were evidently the reverse of pleasant. "So I'm really married," mused the young lady--"really and truly married!--and I've been thinking all along it was only a sham ceremony." She lifted up her left hand and looked at the shining wedding-ring. "Ernest! Such a pretty name! And that's all I know about him. Oh, who is he, among all the men I know--who? It's not Doctor Oleander--I'm certain it's not, although the height and shape are the same; and I don't think it's Sardonyx, and I know it's not Hugh Ingelow--handsome Hugh!--because he hasn't the pluck, and he's a great deal too lazy. If it's the lawyer or the doctor, I'll have a divorce, certain. If it were the artist--more's the pity it's not--I--well, I shouldn't ask for a divorce. I do like Hugh! I like him more and more every day, and I almost wish I hadn't played that shameful trick upon him. I know he loves me dearly--poor little, mad-headed me! And I--oh! how could I think to marry Sir Roger Trajenna, knowing in my heart I loved Hugh? Dear, dear! it's such a pity I can't be good, and take to love-making, and marriage, and shirt-buttons, like other girls! But I can't; it's not in me. I was born a rattle-pate, and I don't see how any one can blame me for letting 'nater caper.'" She rose up impatiently and began pacing the room--always her first impulse in moments of perplexity. "I'm a mystery and a puzzle to myself and to everybody else. I don't know who I am, nor what my real name may be--if I have any right to a name! I don't know what I am to this Mr. Walraven, and I don't know who that mysterious woman, Miriam, is. I don't know anything. I have a husband, and I don't know him--shouldn't recognize him if I met him face to face this instant. I'm like the mysterious orphans in the story-books, and I expect it will turn out I have a duke for a father, somewhere or other." Miss Dane walked to the window, drew the curtain, and looked out.