"Yes; he was my late husband's nephew," she answered, with languid indifference.
He saw that she did not care to pursue the subject.
"It puzzled me when I first saw you to-night that I could not account for the strange familiarity of your face," he said; "but since I have so unexpectedly met with my fellow-voyager, Howard Templeton, I distinctly recall the reason. You are singularly like a lady who traveled in his care—your very height, your very features; though, as I remember now, very different in expression. She appeared almost heart-broken; yet she was very beautiful. I need not tell you that, though, since I have already said she looks like you," he added, with an admiring bow.
"What was her name?" asked Mrs. St. John, eagerly, quite oblivious of the delicate compliment.
"I have forgotten it," said Lord Dudley. "Forgetting names is a weakness of mine. Yet I remember that Templeton called her by her Christian name—a very soft and sweet one. Let me see—Laura, perhaps."
Xenie sat silent and thoughtful. There was a strange pain at her heart. She could not understand it.
"It cannot be that I am sorry he is living," she said to herself. "My triumph is greater than if he were dead. He knows that I have my sweet revenge. It was never sweet until I knew him living to feel its pangs! For all his haughty bearing it must be that he feels it in all its bitterness."
Then a sudden irrelevant thought flashed across these self-congratulations.
"I wonder who that Laura can be? Is he in love with her?"
It was the most natural thought in the world for a woman; yet she put it away from her with a sort of angry impatience.