It was an existence for the two sisters, bought by the sacrifice of one and Troubetskoi never had written! Sitting alone, waiting for the morrow, to face Hugh Fraser once more, Alixe Delavigne recalled, with a vow of vengeance, that sad past, the slow breaking of the butterfly, the revelation of all Hugh Fraser's cold-hearted tyranny, the sway of his demoniac jealousy--jealous, even, of a sister's innocent love.

And that last miserable scene, on the eve of their projected voyage to India, when the maddened tyrant discovered Pierre Troubetskoi's long-belated letter, returned once more to madden her.

Fraser had simply raged in a demoniac passion.
For the mistake of a life was at last revealed when that one letter came! The letter addressed to the wife as Valerie Delavigne, which had followed them slowly upon their travels, and, by a devil's decree, had fallen, by a spy-servant's trick, into Hugh Fraser's hands.

It mattered not that the coming lover was even yet ignorant of the miserable marriage.

The envelope, with its address, was missing, when the long pages of burning tenderness were read by the infuriated husband.