"My dear Lady Chandos," she said, "I have called on the most unpleasant business. There is something which I am quite sure I ought to tell you, and I really do not know how. People are saying such things—you ought to know them."
The fair, sweet face lost none of its tranquillity, none of its calm. How could she surmise that her heart was to be stabbed by this woman's words?
"The sayings of people trouble me but little, Lady Ilfield," she replied, with a calm smile.
"What I have to say concerns you," she said, "concerns you very much. I would not tell you but that I consider it my duty to do so. I told Lady Evelyn that she, who had actually witnessed the scene, ought to be the one to describe it, but she absolutely refused; unpleasant as the duty is, it has fallen on me."
"What duty? what scene?" asked Lady Chandos, beginning to feel something like alarm. "If you have anything to say, Lady Ilfield, anything to tell me, pray speak out; I am anxious now to hear it."
Then indeed was Lady Ilfield in her glory. She hastened to tell the story. How Captain and Lady Evelyn Blake had gone with a few friends for a river-party, and at Ousely had seen Lord Chandos with Madame Vanira, the great queen of song.
Lady Marion's sweet face colored with indignation. She denied it emphatically; it was not true. She was surprised that Lady Ilfield should repeat such a calumny.
"But, my dear Lady Chandos, it is true. I should not have repeated it if there had been a single chance of its being a falsehood. Lady Evelyn saw the boat fastened to a tree, your husband and Madame Vanira sat on the river bank, and when the captain spoke to Lord Chandos he seemed quite annoyed at being seen."
Lady Marion's fair face grew paler as she listened; the story seemed so improbable to her.
"My husband—Lord Chandos—does not know Madame Vanira half so well as I do," she said; "it is I who like her, nay, even love her. It is by my invitation that madame has been to my house. Lord Chandos was introduced to her by accident. I sought her acquaintance. If people had said she had been out for a day on the river with me there would have been some sense in it."