"I was startled--only that," she answered. "It was like seeing a ghost. And you must remember there was Clarice, too. I assure you I was more startled at the sight of her than by Mr. Wentworth. It was a nervousness, agitation, fright, what you will, St. Leon, but not love. No, no, no, not love! I love you only, my husband. You are the life of my life!" She clasped her hands around his arm, and looked up to him with dark, pathetic eyes. "I am not perfect, St. Leon," she said, "and life is not all sunshine. Some day the heavy, lowering clouds of fate will pour out their blinding rain upon our heads. You may believe many hard things of me then, St. Leon, but you may be sure of one thing always, dear. I love you now and I shall love you forever, with the maddest, deepest passion a woman's heart can cherish!" He had never heard her speak with such passion before. Her love had been like a timid bird brooding softly in her heart, too shy to soar into the sunlight, but the words burst from her now eloquent with her heart's emotion, and made sacred by the burning drops that fell from her eyes. He could not but believe her. The jealous misery fled from his heart as he clasped her in his arms and kissed the trembling rosebud mouth. "Forgive me, darling, for doubting you," he said, repentantly. "It was because I love you so dearly, and I have always been so absurdly jealous of Cyril Wentworth. I would give anything upon earth to be able to say that you had never loved any one but me." And she could not tell him that it was true. It was a part of her punishment that this dark shadow--the thought that her first love had been given another--should never be lifted from his life. She knew that it was a pain to his jealous nature, but her lips were sealed. Some day he would know the truth, she said to herself bitterly, but then it would come too late for his happiness. CHAPTER XXX. "I loved him, Mrs. Wentworth. That is all my defense. Call me weak, cowardly, wicked, if you will; but I could not put the temptation from me. Think what all my life had been--how dull, how sad, how lonely! Was it easy to put away happiness when it came to me in so fair a guise?" The white hands were clasped imploringly, the dark eyes were lifted pleadingly as the sad words fell from Laurel's lips. Beatrix Wentworth and Clarice Wells, her judges and accusers, looked gravely upon the tortured face of the culprit--the fairest culprit that was ever arraigned for her sin. "Do you call it happiness?" said Beatrix Wentworth. "I should not think you would know one happy hour, living on the verge of a volcano that may destroy you at any moment. I should think that your sorrow and repentance would almost kill you."