“The young English duchess is lovely, but too sad,” said an embassadress, as the hostess joined her.

“Ah! yes, poor child! lost her father and mother within a few weeks of each other,” answered Lady C.

“But that was six months ago; she ought to have recovered some cheerfulness by this time,” remarked old Madame Bamboullet, who was a walking register of all the births, deaths and marriages of high life in Paris for the last half century.

“Well, you see she has not done so; but here come the gentlemen,” observed Lady C., as a rather straggling procession from the dining-room entered.

The host, Lord C., went up to the embassadress to whom it was his cue to be most attentive.

The Duke of Hereward sought out his hostess, and entered into a bantering conversation with her.

Count Waldemar de Volaski came directly up to Valerie where she sat alone on the sofa in a distant corner of the room.  The little gilded stand stood before her, and the photographic album lay open upon it.  Her eyes were fixed upon the album, and were not raised to see the new-comer; but the sudden accession of pallor on her pale face betrayed her recognition of him.

He drew a chair so close to her sofa that only the little gilded stand stood between them.  His back was toward the company; his face toward her; his elbows, with unpardonable rudeness, were placed upon the stand, and his hands supported his chin, as he stared into her pale face with its downcast eyes.

“Valerie,” he said.

She did not look up.

“Valerie de Volaski!” he muttered.

"My wife!"

She shuddered, but did not lift her eyes.

She shrank into herself, as it were, and her eyes fell lower than before.

“Is it thus we two meet at last?” he demanded, in low, stern, measured tones, pitched to meet her ear alone.  “Is it thus I find you, after all that has passed between us, bearing the name and title of another man who calls himself your husband, oh! shame of womanhood!”

“They told me our marriage was not legal, was not binding!” she panted under her breath.

“It should have been religiously, sacredly binding up on you as it was upon me, until we could have made it legal.  It is amazing that you could have dreamed of marriage with another man!” muttered Volaski.

“But they told me you were dead.  They told me you were dead!” she gasped, as if she were in her own death throes.

“Even if they had told you truly—­even if I had been dead—­dead by the hand of your father—­could that circumstance have excused you for rushing with such indecent haste to the altar with another man?  It was but a poor tribute to the memory of the husband of your choice (if he had been dead) to marry again within six months.”

“Oh, mercy!  Oh, my heart! my heart!  They forced me into that marriage, Waldemar!  They forced me into that marriage!  I was as helpless as an infant in the hands of my father and my mother!” she panted, in a voice that was the more heart-rending from half suppression.