The carriage whirled them away to their hotel, and as it rattled over the streets Laurel watched her husband's cold, grave face with wonder.
"What is it, St. Leon?" she asked him, slipping her arm timidly in his. "Why do you look so grave?"
"I am puzzled," he answered.
"Over what, St. Leon?" asked the beautiful girl.
"Over your fainting spell," he answered, moodily. "You told me you had ceased to love Cyril Wentworth, but at the bare sight of him you fell like one dead. What am I to think, Beatrix?"
It came over her like a flash, that he was jealous of Cyril Wentworth—of Cyril Wentworth, whom she had never beheld until to-day.
How she longed for him to know the truth, to tell him that she had never loved mortal man save him whom she called her husband! But it was one of the pains and penalties of her position that she could not confess to St. Leon. He must go on believing that her first pure love had been lavished on another, must go on doubting her, for his looks and words assured her that the first seeds of jealousy had been sown in his heart.
Hot tears of pain and humiliation gathered in her eyes and splashed heavily down her pale cheeks.
"Oh, St. Leon, you do not, you cannot, believe that I love him still?" she sighed.