“She will never do more,” the Duchess said gravely, “than look upon his face through iron bars.  He is a prisoner for life in one of the gloomiest and most impregnable of Siberian fortresses.  Some day, if you like, I will tell you the story of her marriage.  It was a most unhappy one.”

“Tell me now,” he begged breathlessly.

She hesitated.  A foreign prince bowed before her, his breast glittering with orders.  She looked up at him smiling.

“Prince,” she said, “Mr. Guest and I are elaborating together the plot of his next novel, and it is wonderfully fascinating.”

He bowed low and passed on.  She turned again to Douglas.

“I can tell it you,” she said, “sufficiently in half a dozen sentences.  Emily was the orphan child of one of the richest and noblest Hungarian families—­the man she married was half a Pole half a Hungarian, poor, but also of noble family.  His life was a network of deceit, he himself was a conspirator of the lowest order.  He married Emily for her money—­that it might be used for what he called the Cause.  When she declined to have anything to do with it he first ill-treated her shamefully, and afterwards deserted her.  Twice he was graciously pardoned by the Czar, twice he broke his word of honour and plunged again into infamy.  The third time it seemed that nothing could save him, for he was caught in the act of directing a shameful conspiracy against the man who had treated him so generously.  He was sentenced to death, but Emily crossed Europe in a special train, and after terrible difficulties won his life from the Czar herself when every other means had failed.  He was condemned to imprisonment for life, and she gave her word that she would never ask for any mitigation of that sentence.  Think of the generosity of that action!  Although the man had treated her vilely, and she was young and beautiful, yet she doomed herself to a perpetual widowhood in order to save his life.  I happen to know, too, that her love for him was wholly dead.”

“It was magnificent,” he murmured with something that sounded like a sob.

“She came to live in London, where her story was little known.  That was ten years ago.  I think that I am almost the only person who knows the whole truth about her, and if you ask me why I have told you, well, I can only say that it was by instinct.”

“Duchess,” he said, “you have told me the story of a heroine—­now let me tell you the story of a fool.  I came to London a very short time ago, poor, friendless, and untried.  She was the only person from whom I received any spontaneous kindness whatever.  She visited me when I was ill, she asked me to her house, she encouraged me in my work, she showed me how exquisite a thing the intelligent sympathy of a cultivated woman can be to a man who is struggling for expression.  And in return—­listen.  There were others whom she had befriended—­like me.  She had keen literary instincts, as you know,