lyle. She had declined to give her name, but there
arose to Mr. Carlyle's memory, when he looked upon her, one whom he had
seen in earlier days as the friend of his first wife--Blanche Challoner.
It was not Blanche, however.

The stranger looked keenly at Mr. Carlyle. He was standing with his
hat in his hand, on the point of going out. "Will you pardon this
intrusion?" she asked. "I have come to you as one human being in need
comes to crave help of another. I am Lady Levison."

Barbara's face flushed. Mr. Carlyle courteously invited the stranger
to a chair, remaining standing himself. She sat for a moment, and then
rose, evidently in an excess of agitation.

"Yes, I am Lady Levison, forced to call that man husband. That he has
been a wicked man, I have long known; but now I hear he is a criminal. I
hear it, I say, but I can get the truth from none. I went to Lord Mount
Severn; he declined to give me particulars. I heard that Mr. Carlyle
would be in town to-day, and I resolved to come and ask them of him."

She delivered the sentences in a jerking, abrupt tone, betraying her
inward emotion. Mr. Carlyle, looking somewhat unapproachable, made no
immediate reply.

"You and I have both been deeply wronged by him, Mr. Carlyle, but I
brought my wrong upon myself, you did not. My sister, Blanche, whom he
had cruelly treated--and if I speak of it, I only speak of what is known
to the world--warned me against him. Mrs. Levison, his grandmother, that
ancient lady who must now be bordering upon ninety, she warned me. The
night before my wedding day, she came on purpose to tell me that if I
married Francis Levison I should rue it for life. There was yet time
to retract she said. Yes; there would have been time; but there was
no _will_. I would not listen to either. I was led away by vanity,
by folly, by something worse--the triumphing over my own sister. Poor
Blanche! But which has the best of the bargain now, she or I? And I have
a child," she continued, dropping her voice, "a boy who inherits his
father's name. Mr. Carlyle, will they _condemn_ him?"

"Nothing, as yet, is positively proved against him," replied Mr.
Carlyle, compassionating the unhappy lady.

"If I could but get a divorce!" she passionately uttered, apparently
losing all self-control. "I might have got one, over and over again,
since we married, but there would have been the _expose_ and the
scandal. If I could but change my child's name! Tell me--does any ch