Dr. Oleander did as directed, and took a seat beside the lady. "Your husband won't happen in, will he, Blanche? Because he might be jealous, you know, at this close proximity; and your black-a-vised men of unknown antecedents are generally the very dickens when they fall a prey to the green-eyed monster." "Pshaw! are you not my cousin and my medical adviser? Don't be absurd, Guy. Mr. Walraven troubles himself very little about me, one way or other. I might hold a levee of my gentlemen friends here, week in and week out, for all he would know or care." "Ah! post-nuptial bliss. I thought marriage, in his case, would be a safe antidote for love. All right, Blanche. Push ahead. What's your business? Time is precious this morning. Hosts of patients on hand, and an interesting case of leprosy up at Bellevue." "I don't want to know your medical horrors," said Mrs. Walraven, with a shudder of disgust; "and I think you will throw over your patients when you hear the subject I want to talk about. That subject is--Mollie Dane!" "Mollie!" The doctor was absorbed and vividly interested all at once. "What of Mollie Dane?" "This," lowering her voice: "I have found out the grand secret. I know where that mysterious fortnight was spent." "Blanche!" He leaned forward, almost breathless. "Have you? Where?" "You'd never guess. It sounds too romantic--too incredible--for belief. Even the hackneyed truism, 'Truth is stranger than fiction,' will hardly suffice to conquer one's astonishment--yet true it is. Do you recollect the Reverend Mr. Rashleigh's story at the dinner-party, the other day--that incredible tale of his abduction and the mysterious marriage of the two masks?" "I recollect--yes." "He spoke of the bride, you remember--described her as small and slender, with a profusion of fair, curling hair." "Yes--yes--yes!" "Guy," fixing her powerful black eyes on his face, "do you need to be told who that masked bride was?" "Mollie Dane!" cried the doctor, impetuously. "Mollie Dane," said Mrs. Walraven, calmly. "By Jove!" Dr. Oleander sat for a instant perfectly aghast. "I only wonder it did not strike you at the time. It struck me, and I whispered my suspicion in her ear as we passed into the drawing-room. But she is a perfect actress. Neither start nor look betrayed her. She stared at me with those insolent blue eyes of hers, as though she could not possibly comprehend." "Perhaps she could not." Mrs. Walraven looked at him with a quiet smile--the smile of conscious triumph. "She is the cleverest actress I ever saw off the stage--so clever that I am sometimes inclined to suspect she may have been once on it. No, my dear Guy, she understood perfectly well. Mollie Dane was the extraordinary bride Mr. Rashleigh married that extraordinary night." "And who the devil," cried Dr. Guy, using powerful language in his excitement, "was the birdegroom?"