She stood listening with dark, dilated eyes, hearing for the first time how her life had been saved that night.
Carmontelle was standing close by her side.
She turned her dark, amazed, tear-wet eyes on his face, and murmured hoarsely:
"Is it truth, or the ravings of fever and delirium?"
"It is truth," he answered; and, with a wild, remorseful cry, Una ran out of the room.
He followed her into the next apartment. She had thrown herself into a chair, and was sobbing wildly.
"Una, why do you take it so hard?" he expostulated. "Surely, no wife could object to such devoted love!"
She looked up at him with agonized entreaty in her eyes.
"Was it love, or—pity?" she cried. "I—I thought—Sylvie Van Zandt told me so—that he loved Ida Hayes before he ever met me, and would have married her but for that—trouble—that forced him to make me his wife."
"It was a fiendish falsehood!" declared Carmontelle, emphatically. "Eliot never thought of Ida Hayes. He loved you from the first moment he saw you."