"Every one knows Brighton," I said. "It is not often one meets an
English lady who does not know it."

She looked at me with the most charming and frank directness.

"I spent a few hours there once," she said. "From the little I saw of it
I took it for a city of palaces."

"It is a beautiful place," I said.

She rose with languid grace and went to the table.

"I think I will ring for some tea," she said. "I am chill and cold in
spite of the fire. Mr. Ford, will you join me?"




CHAPTER VII.


My feelings when I reached my room that night were not to be envied. I
was as firmly convinced of the identity of the woman as I was of the
shining of the sun. There could not be any mistake; I had seen her face
quite plainly in the moonlight, and it had been too deeply impressed on
my mind for me to forget it, or to mistake it for another. Indeed, the
horror of the discovery was still upon me; my nerves were trembling; my
blood was cold. How could it be that my old friend Lance had made so
terrible a mistake? How could I bear to know that the wife whom he