The abbess bowed her head in grave assent.

“‘One whom you thought numbered with the dead, full twenty years ago?’” continued Salome, quoting the lady’s own words, and gazing on her face.

“Full twenty-five years ago, my daughter, or longer still,” murmured the abbess.

“This man is young.  He could not have been grown up to manhood twenty-five years ago.”

“He is well preserved, as the selfish and heartless are too apt to be; but he is not young.”

“And he is not the Duke of Hereward?”

“Most certainly not the Duke of Hereward.”

“Then in the name of all the holy saints, madam, who is he?” demanded Salome, in ever increasing amazement.

“He is the Count Waldemar de Volaski, once my betrothed husband, but who forsook me, as I have told you, for another and a fairer woman,” gravely replied the abbess.

“Once your betrothed husband, madam!  Great Heaven! are you sure of this?” exclaimed Salome, in consternation.

“Yes, sure of it,” answered the abbess, slowly bending her head.

“But—­pardon me—­I thought that he had been killed in a duel by the lover of the woman whom he had won.”

“Even so thought I. The news of his falsehood and of his death at the hands of the wronged lover, came to me in my convent retreat at the same time, and I heard no more of him from that day to this, when I have again seen him in the flesh.  The saints defend us!”

“And you are absolutely certain that he was Count Waldemar?”

“I am absolutely certain.”

“Mother Genevieve, did you know the woman who was with him?”

“No, not at all.  I never saw or heard of her before.  She seems to belong to the demi-monde, for she dresses like a princess, and talks like a peasant.  Let us not speak of her,” said the lady, coldly.

“We must speak of her, for I think I know who she is.”

“You recognize her, then?”

“I cannot say that I do; at least, not by her person.  I never saw her face before; but I have heard her voice under circumstances that rendered it impossible for me ever to forget its tones; and from her voice I believe her to be Rose Cameron, a Highland peasant girl of Ben Lone.”

“Stop!” exclaimed the mother-superior, suddenly raising her hand.  “You do not mean to intimate that she is the girl whom you overheard talking with the young Duke of Hereward at midnight, under your balcony, on the night before the murder of Sir Lemuel Levison?”

“She is the very same woman, as he is the very same man, who planned, if they did not perpetrate the robbery—­who caused, if they did not commit, the murder; and their names are John Scott, Duke of Hereward, and Rose Cameron.”

“My daughter, in regard to the girl you may be quite right; but in respect to the man you are utterly wrong.”

“Should I not know my own betrothed husband?” demanded Salome, impatiently.