aw it all.

'I am deceived!' she said tragically, and she crackled with virtuous
indignation.

Her first impulse was to knock furiously at the door and force her way
in to bear her James away from the clutches of the big-boned siren. But
she feared that her rival would meet her with brute force, and the
possibility of defeat made her see the unladylikeness of the proceeding.
So she turned on her heel, holding up her skirts and her nose against
the moral contamination and made her way out of the low place. She
walked tempestuously down to Fleet Street, jumped fiercely on a 'bus,
frantically caught the train to Camberwell, and, having reached her
house in the Adonis Road, flung herself furiously down on a chair and
gasped,--

'Oh!'

Then she got ready for her husband's return.

'Well?' she said, when he came in; and she looked daggers.... 'Well?'

'I'm afraid I'm later than usual, my dear.' It was, in fact, past nine
o'clock.

'Don't talk to me!' she replied, with a vigorous jerk of her head. 'I
know what you've been up to.'

'What do you mean, my love?' he gently asked.

She positively snorted with indignation; she had rolled her handkerchief
into a ball, and nervously dabbed the palms of her hands with it. 'I
followed you this afternoon, and I saw you go into that 'ouse with that
low woman. What now? Eh?' She spoke with the greatest possible emphasis.

'Woman!' said Mr Clinton, with a smile, 'What are you to me?'

'Don't call me woman!' said Mrs Clinton, very angrily. 'What am I to
you? I'm your wife, and I've got the marriage certificate in my pocket
at this moment.' She slapped her pocket loudly. 'I'm your wife, and you
ought to be ashamed of yourself.'

'Wife! You are no more to me than any other woman!'

'And you 'ave the audacity to tell me that to my face! Oh, you--you
villain! I won't stand it, I tell you; I won't stand it. I know I can't
get a divorce--the laws of England are scandalous--but I'll 'ave a
judicious separation.... I might have known it, you're all alike, every
one of you; that's 'ow you men treat women. You take advantage of their
youth and beauty, and then.... Oh, you villain! Here 'ave I worked
myself to the bone for you and brought up your children, and I don't
know what I 'aven't done, and now you go and take on with some woman,
and leave me. Oh!' She burst into tears. Mr Clinton still smiled, and
there was a curious look in his eyes.

'Woman! woman!' he said, 'you know not wh