"Ah!" said Blanche, "there's the rub! Mr. Rashleigh doesn't know, and I don't know, and Mollie doesn't know herself."
"What!"
"My dear Doctor Oleander, your eyes will start from your head if you stare after that fashion. No; Mollie doesn't know. She is married; but to whom she has no more idea than you have. Does it not sound incredible?"
"Sound? It is incredible—impossible—absurd!"
"Precisely. It is an accomplished fact, all the same."
"Blanche, for Heaven's sake, explain!" exclaimed the young man, impatiently. "What the foul fiend do you mean? I never heard such a cock-and-bull story in all my life!"
"Nor I. But it is true, nevertheless. Listen: On the night following the dinner-party I did the meanest action of my life. I played eavesdropper. I listened at Mollie's door. All for your sake, my dear Guy."
"Yes?" said Guy, with an incredulous smile.
"I listened," pursued Mrs. Blanche, "and I overheard the strangest confession ever made, I believe—Mollie Dane relating the adventures of that hidden fortnight, at midnight, to that singular creature, Miriam."
"Miriam! Who is she?"