"Whom does she resemble?" Beatrix inquired with her heart on her lips.
"I am sure you will see the likeness as soon as I mention it," he said. "Look closely at Mrs. Lynn, Beatrix—at her rare type of beauty, her dark eyes, her golden hair, her blonde coloring, her delicately chiseled features, her sweet, sad lips. She is like one long dead. She is like Laurel Vane."
A sigh of relief came from her lips.
"I was sure you could not fail to see the resemblance," she said.
"So you had already noted it?" he said.
"Could one help it?" she whispered. "I will tell you a secret, Cyril. I believe that this is Laurel Vane herself."
"But she is dead," Cyril objected, dazed by the suddenness of his wife's revelation.
"I do not believe it. There has been some dreadful mistake. I believe that St. Leon Le Roy's wife lives in the person of Mrs. Lynn," exclaimed Beatrix, whispering to him earnestly for a few minutes.
Laurel and Mr. Gordon, together with Mr. Ford, stood a little apart watching the gay crowd of waltzers whirling down the center of the long room to the measured beat of the gay dance music. She did not know why she turned her head and looked in another direction, but it must have been in magnetic obedience to an evil spell, for in a moment she met the glance of Maud Merivale—Maud standing near and leaning on the arm of a man who regarded her with bold and eager eyes.
To have saved her life, Laurel could not have repressed that agitated start, that tremor that shook her from head to foot at sight of her old enemy's face! She had been proof against the softness of love, the allurements of friendship, but in that instant the deadly influence of fear and detestation sent a shudder through her frame and blanched her lovely face to the pallor of death. It seemed as though she was possessed by some horrible nightmare dream, as she met those bold, evil eyes, and realized he recognized her as Laurel Vane whom he had so relentlessly pursued with his evil designs.