"Leslie Noble, my unloved and unloving husband, is alive and married to his old love, Ivy Cleveland--how passing strange," she murmurs, hollowly, to herself. "What strange mystery is here? Did he believe me dead, as I did him? Or has he, in the madness of his love for Ivy, recklessly plunged into sin? But if so, why did he bring her here where they must meet me? There is some strange, unfathomable mystery here which I cannot penetrate." Alas, poor Vera! the gloom of a subtle mystery wraps thee round, indeed, and the hand that held the key to the secret is cold in death. Low moans gurgle over her lips, and blend with the murmur of the fountain as it splashes musically into the marble basin. She is thinking of her handsome, noble lover between whose heart and hers a barrier has risen, wide and deep as the eternal Heaven. "I must part from him, my Philip, my love!" she moans, "for in the sight of God I am Leslie Noble's wife, even though before men he is Ivy Cleveland's husband." She bows her face in her hands, and bitter, burning tears stream through her fingers. In all the hours when she has brooded over that oath of vengeance made by her father's death-bed, no slightest thought has come to her in what terrible way she must keep her vow, and at what fearful cost to her life's happiness. "What strange prescience came to my father in dying?" she asks herself, in wonder. "How strangely his words were shaped to fit the awful reality. I must punish Marcia Cleveland through her dearest affections, he said. All her heart is centered on Ivy, and when I claim Leslie Noble from her and cover her head with that awful shame, my father's wishes will be fulfilled. And lest I should falter in my dreadful task, he added that last clause, no matter at what cost to myself. Oh, God! what will Philip say when he learns the truth? The way is plain before me how to keep my vow. I, who loathe and despise Leslie Noble, must claim him before God and man as my husband, and humiliate Ivy Cleveland to the dust. In no other way can I punish Marcia Cleveland and avenge my mother's wrongs." "In no other way," the fountain seems to echo, as it splashes musically down, and Lady Vera, turning coward now in the face of the terrible future, prays in bitterest agony: "Oh, God! if I could die--die here and now, with Philip's last fond kiss still warm upon my lips, before I have to speak the dreadful words that will doom us to a living death in life." With an effort she shakes off, presently, the horror and dread and shrinking repugnance with which she looks forward to the fulfillment of her oath.