"He loves me so dearly, perhaps he will forgive me," she whispered to her beating heart. "I know if he had wronged me ever so bitterly, I should forgive him and love him still if he prayed me on his bended knees, as I shall do." She pinned all her faith to the strength of his love and the power of that beauty on which he never wearied of gazing. She grew suddenly alarmed at the pallor of her face and the heaviness of her eyes. She thought that her beauty was deserting her, that potent charm by which she hoped to hold his heart when he found her out in her sin. "I must go out, indeed," she cried to herself, in sudden terror; "I must get back my brightness and my color. I cannot afford to lose one charm that may hold my husband's heart!" She forgot that he valued truth and honor more than mere physical loveliness--she forgot that he had scorned all womanhood for long years because one beautiful woman had been false to him. She could think of nothing but her anguished yearning not to lose her husband. CHAPTER XXXVII. That day on which Ross Powell saw Laurel with her husband was the last of a series of happy walks and rides she had taken with St. Leon. On that day that closed in so softly with the goldenest sunshine and tenderest twilight, that day seemed too fair for a day of fate, the suspended sword fell. Yet she had never felt its shadow less than she did that day. She gave herself up blindly to her happiness, prizing it all the more because she knew it could not last. When she went to dress for her drive that evening she was most particular about her toilet. She chose a Parisian robe of cream and ruby colors, that was particularly becoming. Her bonnet was of creamy duchess lace, and its coronet of pale-pink rosebuds rested daintily against her rich golden waves of hair. The delicate lace at her throat was held by a gold bar set with pink coral and diamonds. Her boots and gloves were Parisian; her rose satin parasol shed a lovely glow over her pearl-fair complexion. She was lovely as a dream, and she looked the dainty aristocrat from head to foot. St. Leon Le Roy said to himself with pardonable pride that he had won the most beautiful woman in the world for his wife. She had never enjoyed a ride more than she did that afternoon. St. Leon had never been more tender and devoted. It was like heaven to look up into those dark, speaking eyes and read the love and adoration in his face. It filled her with a great passionate rapture and delight. She worshiped her noble husband with the blindest, most unreasoning passion woman's heart ever knew. In him she "lived and moved and had her being."