“You guess—­innocent—­don’t you know, then?”

“Nothing, nothing!  I only suspect—­believe!  I have been groping alone in the darkness—­and yet I do know!  He was innocent—­he played a part?”

“Yes,” said Mary gently; “he sacrificed himself, for another!”

“He sacrificed himself—­for me.  Ah, say it! say it!”

Mary was greatly puzzled and at the same time moved—­filled with a supreme compassion for this woman who was yet such a child, so dainty and frail a thing to confront the deadly knowledge that she had made a shipwreck of a life, of lives.

And yet, was there not also a ring of exultation, a challenge in her last words?

At least, her sorrow was ennobled.  She was invested with a sombre glory, as one who had inspired a rare and perfect devotion.

And, after all, had she not already been considered enough?

A silence ensued, during which Eve seemed to be wrapped in steadfast thought.

She grew calmer, picking up her bouquet, and sedulously arranging its disordered foliage; while Lord Overstock, who had arrived with Mary’s fan, poured forth elaborate apologies, protesting that she must give him another dance—­the second extra—­to make up for the time he had lost.

Already the music was beginning for the next dance, and people passed in couples, laughing and talking gaily, a motley procession, on their way into the ball-room.

“I thought your brother would have told you,” said Mary softly, bending over her programme and gathering her skirts together with a suggestion of departure.

“Charles?  He was always prejudiced against him—­always his enemy!”

“That is why; he is very just, very conscientious.  He told me this afternoon.”

Mary’s voice sank a little lower.  She was standing now.  She could see her prospective partner looking for her.  She wondered vaguely whether Eve accepted the alternative, whether she realized that, to prove Philip innocent, was to establish her husband’s guilt, his original wrong-doing, and subsequent cowardice.

“But—­Charles!  How did he know?  Does he believe it?  Who told him?”

Mary had gently disengaged her arm from Eve’s restraining hand.  She stepped back for an instant, excusing herself to her expectant cavalier.

“One of Philip’s friends told him to-day—­proved it to him, he says.  It was a Mr. Oswyn.”

A minute later Mary found herself in the ball-room, making heroic efforts to divide her entire attention impartially between the strains of the band and the remarks of her partner.

She was afraid to pass in review the conduct of those few minutes which had seemed so long.  Had it really all occurred in the interval between two waltzes?

For the present she drew a mental curtain over the scene.  She lacked the courage to gaze upon her handiwork, although she was not without a hopeful instinct that, when she criticised it in sober daylight, she would even approve of what she had done.  Her determination did not, however, carry her further than the middle of the dance.