Then a new phase of the situation flashed upon her.  It was hard for her vanity to accept Van Loo’s desertion as voluntary and final.  What if that hateful woman had lured him away by some trick or artfully designed message?  She was capable of such meanness to insure the fulfillment of her prophecy.  Or, more dreadful thought, what if she had some hold on his affections—­she had said that he had pursued her; or, more infamous still, there were some secret understanding between them, and that she—­Mrs. Barker—­was the dupe of them both!  What was she doing in the hotel at such a moment?  What was her story of going to Hymettus but a lie as transparent as her own?  The tortures of jealousy, which is as often the incentive as it is the result of passion, began to rack her.  She had probably yet known no real passion for this man; but with the thought of his abandoning her, and the conception of his faithlessness, came the wish to hold and keep him that was dangerously near it.  What if he were even then in that room, the room where she had said she would not stay to be insulted, and they, thus secured against her intrusion, were laughing at her now?  She half rose at the thought, but a sound of a horse’s hoofs in the stable-yard arrested her.  She ran to the window which gave upon it, and, crouching down beside it, listened eagerly.  The clatter of hoofs ceased; the stableman was talking to some one; suddenly she heard the stableman say, “Mrs. Barker is here.”  Her heart leaped,—­Van Loo had returned.

But here the voice of the other man which she had not yet heard arose for the first time clear and distinct.  “Are you quite sure?  I didn’t know she left San Francisco.”

The room reeled around her.  The voice was George Barker’s, her husband!  “Very well,” he continued.  “You needn’t put up my horse for the night.  I may take her back a little later in the buggy.”

In another moment she had swept down the passage, and burst into the other room.  Mrs. Horncastle was sitting by the table with a book in her hand.  She started as the half-maddened woman closed the door, locked it behind her, and cast herself on her knees at her feet.

“My husband is here,” she gasped.  “What shall I do?  In heaven’s name help me!”

“Is Van Loo still here?” said Mrs. Horncastle quickly.

“No; gone.  He went when I came.”

Mrs. Horncastle caught her hand and looked intently into her frightened face.  “Then what have you to fear from your husband?” she said abruptly.

“You don’t understand.  He didn’t know I was here.  He thought me in San Francisco.”

“Does he know it now?”

“Yes.  I heard the stableman tell him.  Couldn’t you say I came here with you; that we were here together; that it was just a little freak of ours?  Oh, do!”

Mrs. Horncastle thought a moment.  “Yes,” she said, “we’ll see him here together.”

“Oh no! no!” said Mrs. Barker suddenly, clinging to her dress and looking fearfully towards the door.  “I couldn’t, couldn’t see him now.  Say I’m sick, tired out, gone to my room.”