“The main facts, as I see them, were these.  Juliet Wentworth had married—­four years before this date—­a scholar and archaeologist whom she had met at Harvard during her American stay.  Mr. Sparling was an Englishman, and a man of some means who was devoting himself to exploration in Asia Minor.  The marriage was not really happy, though they were in love with each other.  In both there was a temperament touched with melancholy, and a curious incapacity to accept the common facts of life.  Both hated routine, and were always restless for new experience.  Mrs. Sparling was brilliant in society.  She was wonderfully handsome, in a small slight way; her face was not unlike Miss Curran’s picture of Shelley—­the same wildness and splendor in the eyes, the same delicacy of feature, the same slight excess of breadth across the cheek-bones, and curly mass of hair.  She was odd, wayward, eccentric—­yet always lovable and full of charm.  He was a fine creature in many ways, but utterly unfit for practical life.  His mind was always dreaming of buried treasure—­the treasure of the archaeologist:  tombs, vases, gold ornaments, papyri; he had the passion of the excavator and explorer.

“They came back to England from America shortly after their marriage, and their child was born.  The little girl was three years old when Sparling went off to dig in a remote part of Asia Minor.  His wife resented his going; but there is no doubt that she was still deeply in love with him.  She herself took a little house at Brighton for the child’s sake.  Her small startling beauty soon made her remarked, and her acquaintances rapidly increased.  She was too independent and unconventional to ask many questions about the people that amused her; she took them as they came—­”

“Sir James!—­dear Sir James.”  Lady Lucy raised a pair of imploring hands.  “What good can it do that you should tell me all this?  It shows that this poor creature had a wild, undisciplined character.  Could any one ever doubt it?”

“Wild? undisciplined?” repeated Sir James.  “Well, if you think that you have disposed of the mystery of it by those adjectives!  For me—­looking back—­she was what life and temperament and heredity had made her.  Up to this point it was an innocent wildness.  She could lose herself in art or music; she did often the most romantic and generous things; she adored her child; and but for some strange kink in the tie that bound them, she would have adored her husband.  Well!”—­he shrugged his shoulders mournfully—­“there it is:  she was alone—­she was beautiful—­she had no doubt a sense of being neglected—­she was thirsting for some deeper draught of life than had yet been hers—­and by the hideous irony of fate she found it—­in gambling!—­and in the friendship which ruined her!”

Sir James paused.  Rising from his chair, he began to pace the large room.  The immaculate butler came in, made up the fire, and placed the tea:  domestic and comfortable rites, in grim contrast with the story that held the minds of Lady Lucy and her guest.  She sat motionless meanwhile; the butler withdrew, and the tea remained untouched.