It was weak in her to betray such loss of self-command, but, remember, the blow came unexpectedly.  She saw the edifice she had plotted, and toiled, and risked so much to build, ruined and shattered to its foundation-stone.  How many whispers, and smiles, and eloquent glances had been lavished, only to end in this Pavia, where not even honor was saved from the utter wreck!

Was not the perfect waxen mask of the first Napoleon shivered in that terrible abdication-night at Fontainebleau?  Where was Cleopatra’s queenly dignity when she heard that Antony had rejoined Octavia?

“Why has he gone?  What called him back?”

Her voice had lost the clear ring of silver, and sounded dull and flat, like base metal.

“Constance Brandon wrote to tell him she was dying.  Do you wonder that he went to her?”

A passing cloud of horror swept across Flora’s pale face; but after it broke forth a gleam of strange, ferocious exultation, which stifled the rising pity in her hearer’s breast, and changed it into contempt.

“I don’t believe it,” she cried, passionately.  “It is a trick.  She was quite well two months ago.  At least, she said nothing—­”

She checked herself, but too late.  The practiced duelist laughed grimly in his mustache, as he might have done on discovering the weak point in his enemy’s ward which laid him open to his rapier.

“You make my task easier,” he said; “I came to inquire about a note which miscarried about the time you speak of.  I will know what became of it, Miss Bellasys, though I wish to spare you unnecessary exposure and shame.”

He had gained a momentary advantage, but it did not profit him much.  There are swordsmen who will not own that they are touched, though their life-blood is ebbing fast.  Flora rose without a sign of yielding or weakness in her dry eyes, drawing up her magnificent figure proudly.  Ralph could not help thinking how like her father she was just then.

“I will answer, though I deny your right to question me.  I have not the faintest idea of what you refer to.  I have seen no note, except such as were addressed to myself; and you will hardly think that Miss Brandon would choose me as a confidante or correspondent.”

Mohun saw that she would persist to the last, undaunted as Sapphira.  So he rose to leave her, without another word.

“You do not doubt me?” Flora asked, as he turned away after saluting her.  It was a rash question, all things considered, and scarcely worthy of the accomplished speaker.  There is no more useful maxim in diplomacy than this:  Quieta non movere.

Ralph faced her directly.  “Miss Bellasys, when a lady tells me what I can not believe, I question—­not her word, but—­her agent.”  He was half way down stairs before she could answer or detain him.

He found out Willis’s direction at Guy’s hotel, but he had to wait some time before obtaining it; and other things delayed him en route, so that it was nearly two hours before he reached the modest lodgings, au quatrieme, where the discharged valet was hiding his greatness.