"Let us sit here, Reggie," she said. "Just tell me, and when you have said 'yes,' forgive me for asking that it is true that everything is right."
"Ah! God knows whether it is true or false," he cried.
For him again, the army of Venus laughed and rioted as it had rioted once before in the crowded opera house. Again a woman, pale, wonderful, with dark eyes, sat beside him, beating time listlessly to the music with her feathered fan. She had worn that night her great diamond necklace, and the jewels had flashed and glittered in the bright light, till he could scarcely believe they were not living things. And he had thought it was all over, past and dead. Oh no! "she is not gone really; she has only gone elsewhere ... she often turns up again."
Gertrude felt her heart give one great leap of strained suspense, and then stand still for fear.
"I don't understand," she cried. "Tell me all about it, and tell me quickly. Yet, yet, you said it was all right, didn't you, Reggie, and you wouldn't tell me a lie? Ah! say it is all right again, say it now. I cannot bear it. I should like to kill that woman for what she said. It was not true, was it? Tell me it was not true."
The ghost of Venusberg loomed large before Reggie's eyes, blotting out the green bank of trees in front, the pure sky overhead, the mountains sleeping in the still afternoon, blotting out even the tall, English figure by him, leaning forward towards him in an agony of fear, hope, despair; he saw the gleam of electric light, the gleam of jewels, the gleam of another woman's eyes.
"I will tell you all," he said. "I saw Lady Hayes for the first time after you had left London, and from that time till four days ago I have seen her constantly. Then one night she showed me she was like all those women she moved among, and from whom I thought her so different. She was like Mrs. Rivière, Princess Villari—all is one after that. It was at the opera, at Tannhäuser—"
The intensity of Gertrude's suspense relaxed a little. It was all over, then—
"Ah! we heard the overture together. Do you remember? You said you did not like wicked people."
"Yes, I know. When I saw that, at that moment I loathed her. She had said to me things no woman should say, and when I heard the overture I understood, and told her she was a wicked woman. And not till then—you must believe me when I tell you this—not till I had vowed never to see her again, did I know—my God! that I should say these things to you—did I know I loved her. I have been through heaven and hell, and they are both hell."