She was full of amazement. How had this wonderful thing come about? How was it that among all her thoughts of disaster, she had never taken account of the possibility of such a thing as the death of his love? His love had always seemed to her the one thing on earth which was certain. To have doubt of it would be as ridiculous as to question the likelihood of the light of the sun being quenched in darkness. Her faith had sustained her when nothing else had come to her aid. And yet now she sat there looking into the ashes. She was benumbed with astonishment; and what caused her most astonishment was her own selfpossession during the interview which she had just had with Claude Westwood. She marvelled how it was that she had sat in that chair quietly listening to him, while he boasted of his constancy--of his having remembered her name. He could not understand what she meant when she said that the fact of his remembering her name was a proof that he had forgotten her. Surely he should have understood that she meant that he could not make such a reference to her as he had made in his postscript, unless he had forgotten what her nature was. And yet, that one phrase which had been forced from her, was the solitary expression of the terrible thought that overwhelmed her--the thought that her life was laid in ashes. The reflection upon this marvellous calmness of hers amazed her. She had heard of women finding themselves face to face with their perfidious lovers, and denouncing them in tragic tones. Was it possible that she was differently constituted from other women? Was ever woman so faithful to a man as she had been? And was not the unfaithfulness of the man in proportion to the fidelity of the woman? And yet she had been content to utter only that one sentence of reproach, and its meaning had been so obscure that he had failed to appreciate it! The worst of it was that she felt in her heart no bitterness against him. She had no burning wish to reproach him for having made a ruin of her life. She had no fervid desire to be revenged upon him. She wondered if she was different from other women to whom revenge was dear. Had all the spirit--that womanly element which women call spirit--been crushed out of her by that antagonistic element known as constancy? Had her faith in that man made her faithless to her womanhood? She failed to find an answer to any of these questions; and she went about her daily duties as she had always done, only with that feeling of numbness upon her heart.