to time, but of his life, the life I once so fondly hoped to share, I know nothing!" Lauraine touches the trembling hands. "You were hard on him, I think," she says gently. "I suppose he thought her dead--that he was free." "He said so," answers Lady Etwynde. "Oh, yes, and doubtless he believed it. He could not have dared to offer such an insult to me, or my family. But what I resented was that he should have kept the story back, that he should have pretended that I was his first, his only love, and all the time _she_ had been his wife. I could not forgive that!" "But, my dear," says Lauraine, gently, "you may have had his first _real_ love. The other was but a youthful folly, a hot-headed infatuation. Does any man come to us with his heart pure and free? Few, I think, if any. We cannot judge them by ourselves. That is how so many women wreck their lives. They expect too much. No man can ever be what a girl's dreams would make him. But it is so hard for her to believe that." "I know it now," answers Lady Etwynde. "I have learnt my lesson in bitterness and grief. But I think it has done me good. I have forgiven him long ago. I shall never see him again to tell him so, I suppose; perhaps he would not care even to hear it. But I am happier since I could pardon and pity his weakness, only--my Bayard he could never be again!" "And of her? Do you know anything about her fate?" asks Lauraine, forgetful of her own sorrows in this new interest. "I heard she was dead. She was a vile, cruel woman. He divorced her afterwards, but what was that to me? What can anything be to me now that concerns his name, his life?" There comes a long silence. The thoughts of both are busy with sad memories. As Lauraine looks at Lady Etwynde's face she sees it is full of pain, but her eyes have a dreamy look, as the eyes of one who sees some sweet vision afar off.