"Miss Earle, what is there that I _can_ do?" she inquired, in a clear, distinct voice. "You could go away," Violet replied. "I intend to do so the very day that my engagement is ended," Jaquelina answered. "It would be impossible to do so before. I am under the heaviest bonds to the manager to fulfill my contract. To evade it I should have to forfeit the greater part of my fortune." "You would be willing to do that to insure Mr. Valchester's happiness--would you not?" asked Violet, quickly. "I would do more than that to secure Ronald's happiness," Jaquelina answered, "I would give my life." "Do you love him so well, then?" Violet asked, with actual pain upon her face. "Yes," was the quiet reply. "I love him well enough to make any sacrifice for him if it could but secure his happiness. Can you tell me how to do so, Miss Earle?" "Yes," said Violet. "Obtain a divorce from Gerald Huntington and marry Walter." "Marry Walter?" Jaquelina echoed faintly. "What happiness could that give to Ronald?" "It would leave him free to marry elsewhere. Now he has a foolish, Quixotic notion that honor binds him to remain single for your sake." "And he would be glad to be free from that shadowy tie?" asked the _prima donna_, with white, pain-drawn lips. "Yes," Violet answered, recklessly. "Whom would he marry?" asked Jaquelina. There was a moment's silence. The dark eyes and the blue ones looked straight into each other. In the first moments of that interview Jaquelina had read the secret of the other. She was not surprised when Violet answered desperately: "I would try to win him for myself, then." "You love him?" said Jaquelina, in a tone of the gentlest pity. Violet lay back in the great, velvet arm-chair, her face as pale as death, her white hand pressed to her side to still its heavy beatings. She answered, gaspingly: "Yes, I love him--I have always loved him--before you ever saw him. If I do not win him I shall die!" Then the white lids closed and she lay unconscious before the eyes of her dreaded rival. Jaquelina bent over her and chafed the nerveless hands in her own with tenderest pity. "Poor Violet," she murmured, "I never dreamed of this, yet I have been her unconscious rival for years. Must I give him up to her? Alas! he is not mine to give." It was several minutes before Violet revived. She looked up into the face of her rival and whispered fearfully. "It is my heart, Lina. I cannot bear any great excitement. I have inherited my mother's disease." The look of grief and pity that came over Jaquelina's sensitive features disarmed all Violet's passionate jealousy and resentment for a moment. A blush of shame colored her pale cheeks, and she cried out with a sudden, remorseful impulse: "Oh! Lina, do not look at me so kindly--you would not if you knew!" Touched by an impulse of pity, Jaquelina bent and kissed the white brow with its soft waves of golden hair.