The small hand fell nervelessly from Conway's coat-sleeve and transferred itself to her husband's arm, her eyes lifted proudly, gravely to his. "I am not false," she answered, in a ringing voice; "you know that I am not, Paul." "Am I to disbelieve my eyes?" he questioned, in fiery tones. "I saw you in the gallery--here in Washington, without my knowledge or consent--I go to seek you and place you under proper protection, and find you--you _my_ wife--clinging to this man's arm, your eyes uplifted in such graceful adoration as would make your fortune on the tragic stage--and yet you are not _false_! It would seem that Mr. Conway has not suffered enough at my hands already." The latent nobility in Bruce Conway's nature passed over the taunt unnoticed in his solicitude for the young creature who stood trembling between them, beloved by each, rendered so fatally unhappy by both. "Senator Winans," he said, coldly, but earnestly and remarkably for one of his wavering nature, "there is no need for this scene. I encountered your wife in a purely accidental manner only this moment. She could not find her way out, and requested me to show her the entrance. She was frightened and alarmed, and had you not come up as you did, I should have complied with her wish, placed her in her carriage, and left her. I could not do less for any lady who needed my momentary protection. This is all for which you have to upbraid Mrs. Winans, whom, pardon me, you have injured enough already." Senator Winans passed over the concluding home thrust, and bowed coldly but disbelievingly. He turned to his wife, still burning with resentful anger, but the words he would have spoken faltered on his lips as he looked at her. She had removed her hand from his arm, and fallen back a pace or two from him, her slender figure thrown back, the trailing folds of her rich black velvet robe sweeping far behind her on the marble floor. Her small hands hung helpless at her sides, her fair face looked stony in a fixed despair that seemed as changeless as the expression on the marble face of the statue that stood in a niche near by. Poor child! Her heart was aching with its unmerited humiliation. Here stood the man who had won her young heart in earlier days, only to cast it aside as a worthless toy, a mute witness of the same thing re-enacted by another, and that other one who had promised to love, cherish, and protect her through all the storms of life. To her proud, sensitive soul it was like the bitterness of death to stand there as she stood between these two men. "Well, madam, I am waiting to hear what you have to say for yourself," her husband said, coldly. She whirled toward him, a sudden contempt burning under her black lashes, her voice cool, clear, decisive.