"I want to ask you a straightforward question. Do you think it worth your while to risk that, to risk the love and happiness of your wife, to risk your fair name, the name of your race, your position, and everything else that you ought to hold most dear? Do you think it worth while to risk all this for the sake of spending three months in Berlin, where you can see Madame Vanira every day?"
Lord Chandos looked straight in his mother's face.
"Since you ask me the question," he replied, "most decidedly I do."
My lady shrunk back as though she had received a blow.
"I am ashamed of you," she said.
"And I, mother, have been ashamed of my cowardice; but I am a coward no longer."
"Are tears and prayers of any avail?" asked Lady Lanswell; and the answer was:
"No."
Then my lady, driven to despair between her son and his wife, resolved some evening to seek the principal cause of the mischief—Madame Vanira herself.