“I only wonder it did not strike you at the time.  It struck me, and I whispered my suspicion in her ear as we passed into the drawing-room.  But she is a perfect actress.  Neither start nor look betrayed her.  She stared at me with those insolent blue eyes of hers, as though she could not possibly comprehend.”

“Perhaps she could not.”

Mrs. Walraven looked at him with a quiet smile—­the smile of conscious triumph.

“She is the cleverest actress I ever saw off the stage—­so clever that I am sometimes inclined to suspect she may have been once on it.  No, my dear Guy, she understood perfectly well.  Mollie Dane was the extraordinary bride Mr. Rashleigh married that extraordinary night.”

“And who the devil,” cried Dr. Guy, using powerful language in his excitement, “was the birdegroom?”

“Ah!” said Blanche, “there’s the rub!  Mr. Rashleigh doesn’t know, and I don’t know, and Mollie doesn’t know herself.”

“What!”

“My dear Doctor Oleander, your eyes will start from your head if you stare after that fashion.  No; Mollie doesn’t know.  She is married; but to whom she has no more idea than you have.  Does it not sound incredible?”

“Sound?  It is incredible—­impossible—­absurd!”

“Precisely.  It is an accomplished fact, all the same.”

“Blanche, for Heaven’s sake, explain!” exclaimed the young man, impatiently.  “What the foul fiend do you mean?  I never heard such a cock-and-bull story in all my life!”

“Nor I. But it is true, nevertheless.  Listen:  On the night following the dinner-party I did the meanest action of my life.  I played eavesdropper.  I listened at Mollie’s door.  All for your sake, my dear Guy.”

“Yes?” said Guy, with an incredulous smile.

“I listened,” pursued Mrs. Blanche, “and I overheard the strangest confession ever made, I believe—­Mollie Dane relating the adventures of that hidden fortnight, at midnight, to that singular creature, Miriam.”

“Miriam!  Who is she?”

“Oh! you remember—­the woman who tried to stop my marriage.  Mollie quieted her on that occasion, and they had a private talk.”

“Yes, yes!  I remember.  Go on.  How did Miriam come to be with Mollie, and who the mischief is Miriam?”

“Her aunt.”

“Her aunt?”

“Her mother’s sister—­yes.  Her mother’s name was Dane.  Who that mother was,” said Mrs. Walraven, with spiteful emphasis, “I fancy Mr. Walraven could tell you.”

“Ah!” said her cousin, with a side-long glance, “I shouldn’t wonder.  I’ll not ask him, however.  Proceed.”

“I took to reading a novel after I came home,” proceeded Mrs. Walraven, “and my husband went to bed.  I remained with my book in the drawing-room, very much interested, until nearly midnight.  I fancied all in the house had retired; therefore, when I heard a soft rustling of silk swishing past the drawing-room door, I was considerably surprised.  An instant later, and the house door was softly unfastened.  I turned the handle noiselessly and peeped out.  There, in her pink dinner toilet, jewels and all, was Miss Dane, stealing upstairs, and following her, this wretched, ragged creature, Miriam.”