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477 THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY. 477 was equally surprised and disappointed at the effect of her revel- ation. She had expected to kindle a conflagration, and as yet she had barely extracted a sj>ark. Isabel seemed more awe- stricken than anything else. " Don't you perceive that the child could never pass for her husband's?" the Countess askecl. " They had been separated too long for that, and M. Merle had gone to some far country ; I think to South America. If she had ever had children which I am not sure of she had lost them. On the- other hand, circumstances made it convenient 1 enough for Osmond to acknow- ledge the little girl. His wife was dead very true ; but she had only been dead a year, and what was more natural than that she should have left behind a pledge of their affection 1 With the aid of a change of residence he had been living at Naples, and he left it for ever the little fable was easily set going. My poor sister-in-law, who was in her grave, couldn't help herself, and the real mother, to save her reputation, renounced all visible property in the child." " Ah, poor creature ! " cried Isabel, bursting into tears. It was a long time since she had shed any ; she had suffered a reaction from weeping. But .now they gushed with an abundance in which the Countess Gemini found only another discomfiture. " It's very kind of you to pity her ! " she cried, with a dis cordant laugh. " Yes, indeed, you have a pure mind ! " " He must have been false to his wife," said Isabel, suddenly controlling herself. " That's all that's wanting that you should take up her cause ! " the Countess went on. " But to me to me " And Isabel hesitated, though there was a question in her eyes. ' ' To you he has been faithful ? It depends upon what you call faithful. When he married you, he was no longer the lover of another woman. That state of things had passed away ; the lady had repented ; and she had a worship of appearances so intense that even Osmond himself got tired of it. You may therefore imagine what it was ! But the whole past was between them." " Yes," said Isabel, " the whole past is between them." " Ah, this later past is nothing. But for five years they were very intimate." " Why then did she want him to marry me 1 " money ; and because she thought you would be good to Pansy."
 * ' Ah, my dear, that's her superiority ! Because you had