"I would rather be alone," she answers, wearily.
"Then I will go, my darling, but I shall be very anxious over you. It will be the longest half hour of my life."
He stoops over her, and taking the sweet white face in his hands, kisses the pale, drawn lips. A stifled sob breaks from her at the thought that in a little while these kisses will be hers no longer.
"You are nervous, dear. Let me send my sister to you," he urges.
"I had rather be alone," she answers.
"Forgive me, dear. I will go, then," he answers, turning away.
The tall form disappears in the green, flowery shrubbery. The echo of the firm, elastic footstep dies away. Lady Vera is alone at last, sitting with folded hands and dark, terrified eyes, face to face with the awful reality of her life's despair.
"Leslie Noble, my unloved and unloving husband, is alive and married to his old love, Ivy Cleveland—how passing strange," she murmurs, hollowly, to herself. "What strange mystery is here? Did he believe me dead, as I did him? Or has he, in the madness of his love for Ivy, recklessly plunged into sin? But if so, why did he bring her here where they must meet me? There is some strange, unfathomable mystery here which I cannot penetrate."
Alas, poor Vera! the gloom of a subtle mystery wraps thee round, indeed, and the hand that held the key to the secret is cold in death.
Low moans gurgle over her lips, and blend with the murmur of the fountain as it splashes musically into the marble basin. She is thinking of her handsome, noble lover between whose heart and hers a barrier has risen, wide and deep as the eternal Heaven.