alone I am in the world, insulted, outraged, by that man whose wife I was almost forced to become? Wife!” she cried, “no, his slave, loaded with fetters of gold, which cut into my flesh till my life becomes insufferable. Mr Dale—Armstrong, I thought you sympathised with me in my unhappy state. Have I not shown you, since fate threw us so strangely together, that my life has been renewed that everything has seemed changed?”

He looked at her wildly, and the palette he held fell upon the rich thick carpet in the struggle going on within his breast.

“Are you dumb?” she whispered softly; “have you been blind to my sufferings?”

“No, no!” he cried. “Indeed, I have not. But you must not speak like this. It is madness. I have seen and pitied. I have felt that your husband—”

“Husband!” she said contemptuously.

“Oh, hash!” he cried. “Lady Dellatoria, you are angry—excited. Yes, I see and know everything, but for your own sake, don’t—for Heaven’s sake, don’t speak to me like this.”

“Why,” she said bitterly, “are you not honest and true?”

“No,” he cried wildly. “It is mere folly. It has all been a terrible mistake my coming here. I cannot—I will not continue this work. It is impossible. The Conte insults me. He is dissatisfied. Lady Dellatoria, I cannot submit to all his—”

He shrank from her, for her hand was laid upon his arm.

“Yes,” she said, as she raised her face towards his; “he insults you, as he insults me; he—poor, weak, pitiful creature—insults you who are so true and manly. I am not blind. I have seen all that you try to hide. You pity me; you have shown yourself my sympathetic friend. Yes, and I have seen more—all that you have tried so hard to hide in your veneration—your love for a despairing woman. Mr Dale—Armstrong,” she whispered—and her voice was low, tender, and caressing; her eyes seeking his with a passionate, yearning look, which thrilled him—“don’t leave me now; I could not bear it.”

“Lady Dellatoria!” he panted wildly, as honour made one more stand in his behalf.

“Valentina,” she whispered, “who casts off all a woman’s reserve for you, the first who ever taught her that, after all, there is such a thing as love in this weary world, and with it hope and joy.”

The hands which had rested upon his arm rose to his shoulders, and tightened about his neck, as she laid her burning face upon his breast.