other! He could have nothing in common with a woman so
low as this! It was some bold, bad creature trying to frighten her.
Thus spoke her trembling heart, but her voice was quiet and restrained as
she said in reply:

"I do not see how it affects you that Arthur Spence is my husband, and
this is our child."

The simple dignity with which she spoke and her apparent calmness seemed
to soften the woman and still her anger somewhat. Drawing nearer, she
laid her hand with something of gentleness upon Penny's arm, and tears
started to her eyes as she exclaimed:

"My dear, the man's a scoundrel! You are no wife of his. He married me
when he was a stripling of eighteen, and he cast me off in less than a
year. He ruined me, and now he's ruined you--poor dear!"

"It's false, it's false!" cried Penny with fierce eyes and glowing color.
"You certainly know nothing of my husband. You'll never turn me against
him with your wicked lies! He's good and true--I'm sure of it, say what
you like!"

"I only wish you were right, my dear," replied the other, evidently
softened by Penny's unshaken fidelity. "But God knows I'm speaking the
truth; for here is the proof."

She drew from her pocket a folded paper and held it open before Penny's
eyes.

It was a marriage certificate. It described Arthur Spence as wedded to
Clara Millar, and the date was twelve years ago. The shock, though
intense, was merely momentary. So strong was Penny's trust in her
husband that not even this manifest evidence, as it seemed, could shake
it. Another man might bear the same name--Arthur might have some
disreputable cousin or other relative. She would believe nothing against
the uprightness of her Arthur.

"I do not believe," she said firmly, looking steadfastly at the other
woman, "that my husband could wrong any woman."

"I declare to you before God," cried the stranger excitedly, "that
Sergeant Arthur Spence, whom you call your husband, married me on the day
set down here!" And she rapped with one hand on the paper she held in
the other. "But I have a stronger proof. Read that!"

She had taken an envelope from her pocket as she spoke, and drawing from
it a paper she held it before Penny.

With shaking hands the poor little wife took it. It was a letter--the
handwriting familiar to her. She turned to the signature; it was her
husband's own.

"Read it through," persisted the woman. "See whether I am telling the
truth or lies."