“You refused her your protection, and thus virtually gave her over into a bad man’s power. Yes, he must have been a bad man, or, ambitious as she was, she would not have refused all that he was able to bestow upon her. Mrs. Howard, what if that poor girl has been misjudged and wronged?” She started uneasily, but, after a moment’s reflection, answered: “That could not be. You read the story in a newspaper, and I heard it from him, and both corresponded in detail. She owned it all, confessed to its truth that night, you remember. It is true, she said something to me afterward about explaining it so that I would take her part, but I would not listen. She could not possibly have said anything to condone her fault.” “There is some mystery here,” he said thoughtfully. “I wish that you had listened to her story.” “I wish so, too, if it would have been any comfort to you, Bayard; but I do not think it would have made any difference. It is your love that makes you so lenient to a bad girl,” she answered. He flushed, and exclaimed: “Please do not call her that. It may be true, but I cannot think of her that way. Her flight from her husband into a cold and heartless world has softened my heart toward her, and I would give the world to find her and to help her in her sore distress.” “It would be better for you both if you did not interfere,” she said. “Remember that nothing but her love for you stands between a reconciliation with her husband,” and she flung down before him Fair’s pathetic note, which until now she had resolved not to show him. He read it with burning eyes and deepening color, and the sorrowful words, “Ask him to pity me at least, for my love for him has been my fate,” went to his heart. “You can see how it is,” she said. “She loved you, and she repented her folly when too late. Her awakened conscience would not permit her to go to him while her heart belonged to another. But let her alone, Bayard, and she will forget you and make it up with him. Perhaps, indeed, he has found her ere this.” “Found her!” he repeated questioningly, and she answered: “I forgot to mention that he had gone to seek her. He was enraged at her flight, and swore he would find her again, although she wrote him----” She stopped suddenly, as if she had said too much. “She wrote him--what?” asked Bayard sharply, and, knowing that there could be no evasion now, she repeated the words Fair had written to Prince Gonzaga. In his wrath, he had shown her the note, and the words had burned themselves indelibly on her memory. A bitter groan burst from his tortured heart, and he exclaimed: “I do not know how to forgive you for your hardness to that persecuted child. Yes, I feel subtly that she was in some way wronged, and that her follies were not all of her own seeking.” She shook her head incredulously, but he continued vehemently: