"And what has made you nervous to-night?" his tone unconsciously stern and his thoughts full of the dark, despairing face that had looked up from the depths of the arm-chair at his queenly looking wife. "Nothing," she answered, dreamily, while a swift flush burned on her cheek, and she turned away a little petulantly and began to trifle with the ice again. "I beg your pardon, but it was something, and that something was the man who has just left us. Who and what is he?" "Mr. Bruce Conway, nephew and heir of our hostess. He has been abroad four years, I think, and but just returned." "An old acquaintance of yours, then?" "Well, yes." She turned toward him with marvelous sweetness and self-command. "During my stay with Mrs. Conway I was naturally brought frequently in contact with her nephew. I found him a pleasant acquaintance." "Nothing more--was he not a lover?" His beautiful dark eyes seemed to burn into her soul, so full were they of jealous pain and sudden doubt. She came up to him, crossing her round white arms over one of his, looking up at him with an arch, merry smile. "I really cannot say, since he never confessed to a tender passion for me. The difference in our stations precluded anything of the sort. You must remember that there are few men like you, my loyal love, who stooped to lift a beggar-maid to share your throne." Her eyes were misty and full of unshed tears, partly out of gratitude and love for him, and partly--she could not help it--because she was conscious of a sharp, agonized remembrance of a night four years before, the very thought of which made her turn white and cold as death as she leaned upon her husband's arm. One hand beneath her dimpled chin lifted her face to meet his gaze. She met it sweetly and frankly, but he knew her well enough to know that the intense blackness of her dilated eyes denoted deep emotion. "Tell me the truth, Gracie," he entreated. "That man looked at you as no mere acquaintance ever looked at a woman--looked at you as he had no right to look at the wife of another man! What mystery is this you are trying to withhold from me? If you refuse to answer what I have a right to know you force me to seek satisfaction from him." He was terribly in earnest. The baleful fire of doubt and jealousy burned in his eagle gaze, and startled the young creature who read its language with a vague doubt creeping into her soul. She did not want to deceive her husband--still less did she want to tell him the truth for which he asked. "Spare me!" she entreated. "There is nothing to tell, my love--nothing of any consequence, I mean. It would but annoy you to hear it, mortify me to tell it," and once more the warm blush of insulted matronly pride tinged the girlish cheek with crimson. "For all that I insist upon having an explanation of the scene I witnessed here after leaving you scarcely a minute before!"