"That would make matters worse," he said. "She could put everything right merely by saying a few pleasant things about the Ardens to half a dozen people of her acquaintance--at random. Donna Maria Boccapaduli, the Marchesa di San Giacinto, the Contessa dell' Armi--even Donna Faustina Gouache. She might ask the Ardens to dinner--"

"I observe that you do not name any men," observed the Prince.

"It is not the men who have been talking, so far as I know--nor if they did, would their gossip do so much damage."

"That may be. As for the rest, I will say this. You have said some exceedingly unpleasant things to me this afternoon, but I know you well enough to be sure that you are not only in earnest, but wish to avert trouble rather than cause it. Otherwise I should not have listened to you as I have. I am very deeply attached to my only child, though I am also very fond of my step-daughter. However, I will take this question in hand and find out the truth, and do what I can to mend matters. If I find you have been misinformed, I will ask the favour of another interview."

"I shall always be at your service."

They parted rather stiffly, but without any nearer approach to hostility than was implied in the last formal words they exchanged. Gerano walked slowly homeward, revolving the situation in his mind, and wondering how he should act in order to get at the truth in the case. Being very fond of his wife, his first impulse was to tell her the whole story, and to take counsel with her before doing anything definite. It would have been better had he gone directly to Donna Adele, though he might not have accomplished anything at all, and might have believed her, and might also have quarrelled with Ghisleri afterwards. But he did not foresee the consequences.

The Princess was very much overcome by the account he gave her of his interview with Ghisleri, of whom she had a high opinion as a man of truthful character, bad as he seemed to be in other respects. She knew instinctively and at once that every one of his statements must have been perfectly well founded, and that if he had erred it had a.s.suredly not been in the direction of exaggerating the facts. She was in much the same position as her husband, except that her own daughter was the victim, while his was the aggressor. It was strange that in so many years neither should have understood Adele's character well enough to suspect that she could be capable of any treachery, and yet both were now convinced that the case against her was not by any means a fiction.

The Princess was now in the gravest distress, and she could not keep back her tears as she tried to find arguments in Adele's favour, wishing to the last to defend her husband's child, while never for a moment losing sight of her own.

She was an eminently good woman, but very far from worldly-wise. Indeed, as events proceeded that day, there seemed to be a diminution of wisdom in the action of each in turn as compared with that of the last person concerned. Ghisleri had not really allowed himself time to consider the situation in all its bearings before speaking to Gerano, or he might not have spoken at all. Gerano, next, had scarcely hesitated in confiding the whole affair to his wife, and she, in despair, turned to the one person of all others with whom she was really most in sympathy, to Laura Arden herself, regardless of the consequences to every one concerned.

Lord Herbert was resting before dinner, and she found her daughter alone.

Her heart was almost bursting, and she poured out the story in all its details, accurately, as she had heard it, though hardly knowing what she said. At first Laura was tempted to laugh. She had been so much happier of late that laughing had grown easy, but she very soon saw the real meaning of the situation, and she grew pale as she silently listened to the end. Then her mother broke down again.

"And I have loved her so!" cried the poor lady. "Almost as I have loved you, my child! To think of it all--oh, it is not to be believed!"

Laura was not at that moment inclined to shed tears. It was almost the first time in her life when she was really angry, for her temper was not easily roused. It was not destined to be the last. Dry-eyed and pale, she sat beside the Princess, holding her hands, then drying her fast flowing tears, then caressing her, and saying all she could to soothe and calm her, while almost choking herself to keep down the rage she felt. Her eyes had been opened at last, and she saw what the story really was at which Arden had made such a poor guess. As the Princess grew more calm, she began to look at her daughter in surprise.

"What is the matter, darling?" she asked anxiously. "Are you ill, dear, you look so changed!"

"I am angry, mother," answered Laura, quietly enough. "I shall get over it soon, I dare say."

Even her voice did not sound like her own. It was hollow and strange.

Her mother was frightened.

"I have done very wrong to tell you, Laura," she said, realising too late that the revelation must have been startling in the extreme.

"I do not know," answered Lady Herbert, still speaking in the same peculiar tone, and with an effort. "Adele and I meet constantly. Of course we have been brought up like real sisters, and though we were never intensely fond of one another we talk about everything as if we were. I will be careful in future. This may not be all true, but there is truth in it, if you have remembered exactly what Signor Ghisleri said--or rather, if the Prince has."

The Princess started slightly. Laura had always called Gerano father, as though she had really been his daughter, but the shock had been very sudden, and she found it hard to call by that name the man whose daughter was Adele Savelli.

"I hope it will turn out to be all a mistake!" exclaimed the Princess, weakly, and on the point of bursting into tears again.

"Until we are sure of it, I shall try and behave as usual to Adele, if we have to meet," said Laura. "After that, if it is all true--I do not know--"

When the Princess went home, she was a little frightened at what she had done, and repented bitterly of having yielded to her own unreasoning longing to talk the matter over with Laura--natural enough indeed, when it is remembered that the two loved one another so dearly. It had been a mistake, she was sure, and she would have given anything to undo it. She only hoped that she should not be obliged to explain to her husband.

Laura sat alone by the fireside. Herbert was lying down and would not appear until dinner time, so that she had almost an hour in which to think over the situation. She determined to master her anger and to look the matter in the face calmly. After all, it was only gossip, town-talk, insignificant chatter, which must all be forgotten in the light of the true facts. So she tried to persuade herself, at least, but she found it a very hard matter to believe her own statement of it all. The more she thought it over, the more despicable it all seemed in her eyes, the more savagely she hated Adele. She could have borne the story about herself better, if it had come alone, but she could neither forgive nor find an excuse for what had been said against her husband. To know that people openly called him intemperate--a drunkard, that would be the word! Him, of all living men! The a.s.sertion was so monstrous that all Laura's resolution to control herself gave way suddenly, and she, in her turn, burst into a flood of tears, hot, angry, almost agonising, impossible to check.

She might have been proud to shed them, for they showed how much more she loved her husband than she cared for herself, but she was conscious only of the intense desire to face Adele, and do her some grievous bodily hurt and be revenged for the foul slander cast on Herbert Arden.

She opened and shut her hands convulsively, as though she were clutching some one and strangling the breath in a living throat. Every drop of blood in her young body was fire, every tear that rolled down her pale cheek was molten lead, every beat of her angry pulse brought an angry thought to her brain. How long she remained in this state she did not know.

She did not hear her husband's laboured, halting step on the soft carpet, and before she was aware of his presence he was standing before her, with a look of pain and almost of horror in his delicate face. That was the most terrible moment in his life.

Highly sensitive as he was, loving her almost to distraction as he did, he had always found it hard to understand her love for him. To suspect that all of it was pity, or that a part of it had grown weak of late, was almost impossible to him, and yet the possibility of doubt was there. He had entered the room as usual, without any precaution, but she had not heard him; he had seen her apparently struggling with herself and with some unseen enemy, in a paroxysm of grief and rage. Instantly the doubt rose supreme and struck him, like a sudden blow in the face.

"She has found out her mistake too late--she does not love me, and she longs to be free." That was what Herbert Arden said to himself as he stood before her, and the horror of it was almost greater than he could bear. Yet there was a great and manly courage in his narrow breast. He felt that he must die, but she should not suffer any more than was necessary until then. He drew the best breath he could, as though it were his last. She started, wild-eyed, as he spoke.

"Laura darling--it has been a terrible mistake--and it is all my fault.

Will you forgive me, dear one? I thought that you would love me--I see how it is when you are alone. No woman could have borne this bondage of yours as you have borne it since you have found out--"

"Herbert! Herbert!" cried Laura, in sudden agony. She thought he was going mad before her eyes.

"No, dear," he said, with an immense effort, and making a gesture with his hand as though to keep her in her place. "It is better to say it now, and it need never be said again. Perhaps I should not have the strength. I see it all. You are so kind and good that you will never show it to me--but when you are alone--then you let yourself go--is it any wonder? Are you to blame? You see that you have made the great mistake--that it was all pity and not love--and you long to be free from me as you should be, as you shall be, dear."

A wild cry broke from Laura's very heart when she realised what he meant.

"Love! Darling--Herbert! I never loved you as I love you now!"

She did not know that she spoke articulate words as she sprang to her feet and clasped him in her arms, half mad with grief at the thought of what he must have suffered, and loving him as she said she did, far beyond the love of earlier days. But he hardly understood yet that it was really love, and he tried to look up into her face, almost fainting with the terrible strain he had borne so bravely, and still struggling to be calm.

"Laura darling," he said, in a low voice, "it was all too natural.

Unless you tell me what it was that made you act as I saw you just now, how can I understand?"

She turned her deep eyes straight to his.

"Do you doubt me still, Herbert?" she asked. And she saw that he could not help doubting.

"But if I tell you that what I was thinking of would pain you very much, and that it would be of no use--"

"It cannot be like the pain I feel now," he answered simply.

She realised that what he said was true. Then she told him the whole story, as she knew it. And so, in a few hours, the conversation Ghisleri had held with Gouache began to bear fruit in a direction where neither of them had suspected it possible that their words could penetrate.

Arden had allowed himself to sink into a chair at Laura's side, and he listened with half-closed eyes and folded hands while she spoke. Under ordinary circ.u.mstances he would probably have betrayed some emotion, and might have interrupted her with a question or two, but the terrible excitement of the last few minutes was followed by a reaction, and he felt himself growing colder and calmer every moment, while his heart, which had been beating furiously when he had first spoken to her, seemed now about to stand still. As she proceeded, however, he was aware of the most conflicting feelings of happiness and anger--the latter of the quiet and dangerous sort. He saw at once that he had been utterly mistaken in doubting Laura's love, and from that direction peace descended upon his heart; but when he heard what the world was saying of her, he felt that weak as he was, he had the sudden strength to dare and do anything to avenge the insult. He was human enough, too, to resent bitterly the story about himself, though that, after all, was but a secondary affair in comparison with the gossip about Laura.

When she had finished, he rose slowly, and sat upon the arm of her easy-chair, drawing her head to his shoulder. He kissed her hair tenderly.

"My beloved--can you forgive me?" he asked, in a very gentle voice. "My darling--that I should have doubted you!"

"I am glad you did, dear--this once," she answered. "You see how it is.

You are all the world to me--the mere thought that any one can hurt you by word or deed--oh, it drives me mad!"

And she, who was usually so very calm and collected, again made that desperate gesture with her hands, as though she had them on a woman's throat and would strangle out the life of her in the grip of her firm fingers.

"As for me, it matters little enough," said Arden, taking her hands and stroking them as though to soothe her anger. "Of course it is an absurd and disgusting story, and I suppose some people believe it. But what they say of you is a very different matter."

"I do not think so," broke in Laura, indignantly. "Of course every one knows that we love each other, and that it is all a lie--but when such a tale is started about a man--that he drinks--oh, it is too utterly vile!"

"Dear--shall we try and forget it? At least for this evening. Let us do our best. You have made me so happy in another way--I suffered in that moment very much."

She looked up into his face as he sat on the arm of the chair, and she saw that he looked very ill. The scene had been almost too much for him, and she realised that when he spoke of forgetting it was because he could bear no more.

"Yes, love," she said, "we will put it all away for this evening and be happy together as we always are."