"Yes; I refuse to betray my husband--" "Stop! He is not your husband!" Slowly the anger faded out of her eyes; her clenched fists relaxed.

Her fingers were scraping nervously at the silk of her dress, like the fingers of a child seeking support.

She seemed to lose several inches of her majestic stature.
"What do you mean ?" she whispered.

"What do you mean ?" "Sydney Bamborough is your husband," said the Frenchman, without taking his dull eyes from her face.
"He is dead!" she hissed.
"Prove it!" He walked past her and leaned against the mantelpiece in the pose of easy familiarity which he had maintained during the first portion of their interview.
"Prove it, madame!" he said again.
"He died at Tver," she said; but there was no conviction in her voice.
With her title and position to hold to, she could face the world.
Without these, what was she?
"A local newspaper reports that the body of a man was discovered on the plains of Tver and duly buried in the pauper cemetery," said De Chauxville indifferently.

"Your husband--Sydney Bamborough, I mean--was, for reasons which need not be gone into here, in the neighborhood of Tver at the time.