to detect
your adulterous intercourse; but I have now come to convince you that I
am a man capable of avenging his ruined conjugal honor!"

Anderson, recovering some degree of his usual self-possession, remarked,

"Your accusation, sir, is unjust. Your wife and myself are friends, and
nothing more. She invited me to sup with her here to-night and that is
all about it. If our intentions were criminal, would we have courted the
presence of a third party?"

With these words, Anderson pointed towards me, but Romaine, without
observing me at all, continued to address the paramour of his wife.

"Anderson, you are a liar, and the falsehoods which you have uttered,
only serve to increase your guilt, and confirm me in my resolution to
sacrifice both you and that guilty woman who lies yonder. Can I
disbelieve the evidence of my own eyes? Must I go into particulars, and
say that last night, at about this hour, in the kitchen--ha! you turn
pale--you tremble--your guilt is confessed. I would have killed you last
night, Anderson, but I had not the weapons. This knife and pistol I
purchased to-day, _and I shall use them_!

"Try and revive that _harlot_, for I would speak with her ere she dies!"

Anderson mechanically obeyed. Placing the insensible form of Mrs.
Romaine upon a sofa, he sprinkled water upon her face, and she was soon
restored to a state of consciousness. For a few moments she gazed about
her wildly; and then, when her eyes settled upon her husband, and she
saw the terrible weapons with which he was armed, she covered her face
with her hands and trembled in an agony of terror, for she knew that her
life was in the greatest possible danger.

Romaine now addressed his wife in a tone of calmness which was, under
the circumstances, far more terrible than the most violent outburst of
passion:

"Harriet," said he--"I now fully comprehend your reasons for requesting
to be allowed to occupy a separate apartment. You desired an opportunity
to gratify your licentious propensities without any restraint. Woman,
why have you used me thus? Have I deserved this infamous treatment? Have
I ever used you unkindly, or spoken a harsh word to you? Do you think
that I will tamely wear the horns which you and your paramour have
planted upon my brow? Do you think that I will suffer myself to be made
an object of scorn, and allow myself to be pointed at and ridiculed by a
sneering community?"

"Forgive me," murmured the unhappy wife--"