“I suppose so,” was his dreamy answer.  He was debating a question with himself, one he had thought over a good deal since Wednesday night.  Should he, or should he not, tell his wife?  He would have preferred not to tell her; and, were the secret confined to his own breast, he would decidedly not have done so.  But it was known to three others—­to Miss Carlyle, to lord Mount Severn, and to Joyce.  All trustworthy and of good intention; but it was impossible for Mr. Carlyle to make sure that not one of them would ever, through any chance and unpremeditated word, let the secret come to the knowledge of Mrs. Carlyle.  That would not do, if she must hear it at all, she must hear it from him, and at once.  He took his course.

“Are you ill, Archibald?” she asked, noting his face.  It wore a pale, worn sort of look.

“I have something to tell you, Barbara,” he answered, drawing her hand into his, as they stood together.  They were in her dressing-room, where she was taking off her things.  “On the Wednesday evening when I got home to dinner Joyce told me that she feared Madame Vine was dying, and I thought it right to see her.”

“Certainly,” returned Barbara.  “Quite right.”

“I went into her room, and I found that she was dying.  But I found something else, Barbara.  She was not Madame Vine.”

“Not Madame Vine!” echoed Barbara, believing in good truth that her husband could not know what he was saying.

“It was my former wife, Isabel Vane.”

Barbara’s face flushed crimson, and then grew white as marble; and she drew her hand unconsciously from Mr. Carlyles’s.  He did not appear to notice the movement, but stood with his elbow on the mantelpiece while he talked, giving her a rapid summary of the interview and its details.

“She could not stay away from her children, she said, and came back as Madame Vine.  What with the effects of the railroad accident in France, and those spectacles she wore, and her style of dress, and her gray hair, she felt secure in not being recognized.  I am astonished now that she was not discovered.  Were such a thing related to me I should give no credence to it.”

Barbara’s heart felt faint with its utter sickness, and she turned her face from the view of her husband.  Her first confused thoughts were as Mr. Carlyle’s had been—­that she had been living in his house with another wife.  “Did you suspect her?” she breathed, in a low tone.

“Barbara!  Had I suspected it, should I have allowed it to go on?  She implored my forgiveness for the past, and for having returned here, and I gave it to her fully.  I then went to West Lynne, to telegraph to Mount Severn, and when I came back she was dead.”

There was a pause.  Mr. Carlyle began to perceive that his wife’s face was hidden from him.

“She said her heart was broken.  Barbara, we cannot wonder at it.”

There was no reply.  Mr. Carlyle took his arm from the mantelpiece, and moved so that he could see her countenance:  a wan countenance, telling of pain.