“The first is your Quest of the Sangreal.”

She smiled assent, bitterly enough.

“And the second?”

She did not answer.  She was looking at herself in the mirror; and Stangrave, in spite of his almost doting affection, flushed with anger, almost contempt, at her vanity.

And yet, was it vanity which was expressed in that face?  No; but dread, horror, almost disgust, as she gazed with side-long, startled eyes, struggling, and yet struggling in vain, to turn her face from some horrible sight, as if her own image had been the Gorgon’s head.

“What is it?  Marie, speak!”

But she answered nothing.  For that last question she had no heart to answer; no heart to tell him that in her veins were some drops, at least, of the blood of slaves.  Instinctively she had looked round at the mirror—­for might he not, if he had eyes, discover that secret for himself?  Were there not in her features traces of that taint?  And as she looked,—­was it the mere play of her excited fancy,—­or did her eyelid slope more and more, her nostril shorten and curl, her lips enlarge, her mouth itself protrude?

It was more than the play of fancy; for Stangrave saw it as well as she.  Her actress’s imagination, fixed on the African type with an intensity proportioned to her dread of seeing it in herself, had moulded her features, for the moment, into the very shape which it dreaded.  And Stangrave saw it, and shuddered as he saw.

Another half minute, and that face also had melted out of the mirror, at least for Marie’s eyes; and in its place an ancient negress, white-haired, withered as the wrinkled ape, but with eyes closed—­in death.  Marie knew that face well; a face which haunted many a dream of hers; once seen, but never forgotten since; for to that old dame’s coffin had her mother, the gay quadroon woman, flaunting in finery which was the price of shame, led Marie when she was but a three years’ child; and Marie had seen her bend over the corpse, and call it her dear old granny, and weep bitter tears.

Suddenly she shook off the spell, and looked round and clown, terrified, self-conscious.  Her eye caught Stangrave’s; she saw, or thought she saw, by the expression of his face, that he knew all, and burst away with a shriek.

He sprang up and caught her in his arms.  “Marie!  Beloved Marie!” She looked up at him struggling; the dark expression had vanished, and Stangrave’s love-blinded eyes could see nothing in that face but the refined and yet rich beauty of the Italian.

“Marie, this is mere madness; you excite yourself till you know not what you say, or what you are—­”

“I know what I am,” murmured she:  but he hurried on unheeding.