“Is it from the duchess?” she asked.

“Yes, it is from the duchess,” replied her husband.

He saw her sink slowly down upon a lounge.  Above her, in the upper panes of the window beneath which they were sitting, were the armorial bearings of the family in richest hues of stained glass.  The colors and shadows fell with strange effects on her white dress, great bars of purple and crimson crossing each other, and opposite to her hung the superb Titian, with the blood-red rubies on the white throat.

Lord Arleigh watched Madaline as she read.  Whatever might be the agony in his own heart, it was exceeded by hers.  He saw the brightness die out of her face, the light fade from her eyes, the lips grow pale.  But a few minutes before that young face had been bright with fairest beauty, eloquent with truest love, lit with passion and with poetry—­now it was like a white mask.

Slowly, and as though it was with difficulty that she understood Lady Arleigh read the letter through, and then—­she did not scream or cry out—­she raised her eyes to his face.  He saw in them a depth of human sorrow and human woe which words are powerless to express.

So they looked at each other in passionate anguish.  No words passed—­of what avail were they?  Each read the heart of the other.  They knew that they must part.  Then the closely-written pages fell to the ground, and Madaline’s hands clasped each other in helpless anguish.  The golden head fell forward on her breast.  He noticed that in her agitation and sorrow she did not cling to him as she had clung before—­that she did not even touch him.  She seemed by instinct to understand that she was his wife now in name only.

So for some minutes they sat, while the sunset glowed in the west.  He was the first to speak.

“My dear Madaline,” he said, “my poor wife”—­his voice seemed to startle her into new life and new pain—­“I would rather have died than have given you this pain.”

“I know it—­I am sure of it,” she said, “but, oh, Norman, how can I release you?”

“There is happily no question about that,” he answered.

He saw her rise from her seat and stretch out her arms.

“What have I done,” she cried, “that I must suffer so cruelly?  What have I done?”

“Madaline,” said Lord Arleigh, “I do not think that so cruel a fate has ever befallen any one as has befallen us.  I do not believe that any one has ever suffered so cruelly, my darling.  If death had parted us, the trial would have been easier to bear.”

She turned her sad eyes to him.

“It is very cruel,” she said, with a shudder.  “I did not think the duchess would be so cruel.”

“It is more than that—­it is infamous!” he cried.  “It is vengeance worthier of a fiend than of a woman.”