As Florian sat there, scribbling off a few lines of apology for their hasty departure, the door opened of a sudden?—?and Will Deverill entered.

Florian rose, a little abashed?—?though, to be sure, it took a good deal to abash Florian. He stood by the desk, hesitating, with his unfinished letter dangling idly in his hand, while he debated inwardly what plausible lie he could invent on the spur of the moment and palm off to excuse himself. But before he could make up his mind to a suitable story, Linnet?—?that impulsive southern Linnet?—?had rushed forward, all eager, with her own version of the episode. “O Will,” she cried, spoiling all by her frank avowal, “I’m so glad you’ve come at last! I couldn’t bear to wait here in doubt any longer; and Florian’s so kind: he was just going to take me off for the night to his sister’s!”

Will turned from her and gazed at Florian for a brief space in blank surprise. Then, as by degrees it dawned upon him what this treachery really meant, his face changed little by little to one of shocked and horrified incredulity. “Florian,” he said, in a very serious voice, “come out here into the passage. This thing must be explained. I want to speak with you.”

Florian followed him on to the landing, hardly knowing what he did. Will’s eye was cold and stern. “Now, look here,” he said, frigidly, fixing his man with his icy gaze, “it’s no use lying to me. I know as well as you do, you’ve got no sister.”

Florian smiled imperturbable. “Well, no,” he said, blandly; “but?—?I thought I might improvise one.”

Will took him in at a glance. He pointed with one hand to the stairs, impressively, “Go! without another word,” he said. “You’ve behaved like a cad. Instead of trying to save and help this poor girl, you’ve concocted a vile plan in my absence to ruin her.”

Florian turned to him, cynically. “You were looking out for a house to take her to yourself,” he answered. “I don’t suppose you meant to return her to her husband. If you may do it, why not I as well? Two can play at that game, you know. It’s quits between us. You needn’t pretend to such high morality at the very moment when you’re engaged in enticing another man’s wife away from her husband.”

Will didn’t deign any further to bandy words with the fellow. “Go!” he said, once more, pointing sternly to the doorway. Florian turned on his heel, and slunk down the stairs, as jauntily as he could, but looking for all that just a trifle disconcerted. Will leant over the banisters, as he went, with a sudden afterthought. “And if ever you dare to say anything to anyone on earth about having seen Linnet here, at my rooms, to-night,” he called out, very pointedly, “I shall think you, if possible, even a greater cad than I think you now, and not hesitate to say so.”

He returned to Linnet in his sitting-room. He wouldn’t speak before her to Florian because he couldn’t bear she should even suspect how bad an opinion the man had had of her, and what plot he had laid for her.

“You shall go round to Mrs Palmer’s, Linnet,” he said, taking her hand in his. “The place Florian spoke of isn’t at all the right place for a girl like you. But Rue will receive you like a sister till we can arrange some other plan for you. At her house, you’ll be safe from every whisper of scandal.”

“You’ll take me there, won’t you?” Linnet inquired, gazing wistfully at him.

On that point, however, Will was firm as a rock. “No, dearest,” he answered, laying one hand on her full round arm, persuasively. “You must go there alone, with only your maid. It’s better so. Rue has a friend or two coming in to dine with her to-night. They’ll see you arrive at her door by yourself; and if any talk comes of it, they’ll know how to answer it.”

Linnet flung herself upon him once more, in a last clinging embrace. She was wildly in love with him. Will pressed her hard to his heart; then he gently disengaged himself, and led her to the door. A cab was in waiting?—?the cab that brought him there. Linnet got into it at once, and drove off with Ellen. In twenty minutes more, she was in Rue’s pretty drawing-room.

That night, when all the rest were gone, she and Rue sat up long and late, talking together earnestly. Their talk was of Will. Linnet didn’t try to conceal from her new friend how much she loved him. Rue listened sympathetically, suppressing her own heart, so that Linnet ceased even to remember to herself how she had thought once of the grand lady as her most dangerous rival.

But all the time, Rue preached to her one line of action alone: “You must get a divorce, of course, dear, and marry Will Deverill.” And all the time, Linnet shook her head, and answered through her tears, “A divorce to me is a mockery and a delusion. I’d rather stop with him openly, and defy the world and the Church together, than affront my God by pretending to marry him, when I know in my heart Andreas Hausberger is and must always be my one real husband.”

At last they went to bed. Neither slept much that evening. Linnet thought about Will; Rue thought about Linnet. As things now stood, Rue would give much to help them. Since Will loved this woman far more than he loved her, she wished indeed Linnet might be freed at last from that hateful man, and they two might somehow be happy together. Only the Church stood in the way?—?that implacable Church, with its horrible dogma of indissoluble marriage.

Next day, Linnet spent very quietly at Rue’s. Will never came near the house; but he wrote round a long and earnest letter to Linnet, urging her with all the force and persuasiveness he knew to go down that night as usual to the theatre. It was best, he said, in order to avoid a scandal, that she should appear to have left her unworthy husband on grounds of his own misconduct alone, and be anxious to fulfil in every other way all her ordinary engagements.

Linnet went, sick at heart. She hardly knew how she was to get through Carmen. But when she saw Will’s face in a box at the side, watching her with eager anxiety, she plucked up heart, and, fired by her own excitement, sang her part in that stirring romance as she had never before sung it. She rushed at her Toreador as she would have rushed at Will Deverill. At times, too, as in the cigar factory scene, she was defiant with a wonderful and life-like defiance; for she marked another face in the stalls before her?—?Andreas Hausberger’s hard face, gazing up at his flown bird with intense determination. Rue had come to see her through. At the end of the performance, Rue waited at the door for her. Will passed by, and spoke casually just a few simple words of friendly congratulation on her splendid performance; then she drove away, flushed, to Hans Place, in Rue’s carriage.

It didn’t escape her notice, however, that, as she stepped in, Andreas Hausberger stood behind, with his hand on the door of their own hired brougham. As Linnet drove off, he leaned forward to the coachman. “Follow the green livery,” he called out in so loud a voice that Linnet overheard it. When they drew up at Rue’s door, he was close behind them. But he noted the number, that was all; he had been there before, indeed, to Rue’s Sunday afternoons, and only wished to make sure of the house, and that Linnet was stopping there. “Drive on home,” he called to the man; and disappeared in the distance. Linnet looked after him and shuddered. She knew what that meant; and she trembled at the thought. He would come back to fetch her.

She was a Catholic still. If he came and bid her follow him?—?her lawful husband?—?how could she dare refuse him?

All that night long, she lay awake and prayed, torturing her pure soul with many doubts and terrors. In the lone hours of early morning, ghastly fears beset her. The anger of Heaven seemed to thunder in her ears; the flames of Hell rose up to take hold of her. S............