e strangers
in the adjoining box, and, by declaring his name, to compel them to
bring home to Rutledge the accusation he had overheard. He had no
time, had he even head, to weigh all the difficulties of such a line
of procedure. It was not at such a moment that he could consider the
question calmly and deliberately. Next to the poignant sense of injury,
the thought of vengeance was uppermost in his mind; and the chances
were that he was ready to wreak his fury on the first object that should
present itself. Fortunately,--might I not rather say unfortunately,
since nothing could be more disastrous than the turn affairs were fated
to take; it seemed, however, at the moment, as though it were good
fortune that when my father by an immense effort succeeded in reaching
the adjoining box, the former occupants had departed. Several persons
were leaving the coffee-room at the same instant; and though my father
tried to hasten after them, and endeavor to recognize the voices he
had overheard, his strength was unequal to the effort, and he sank
back powerless on a bench. He beckoned to a waiter who was passing,
and questioned him eagerly as to their names, and, giving him a guinea,
promised as much more if he should follow them to their residences and
bring back their addresses. But the man soon returned to say that as
the strangers were not remarked by him, he had no clew whatever to Their
detection in the crowded streets of the capital.

It struck my father as though destiny itself pointed out Rutledge as
the only one of whom he could seek reparation; and now he retired to
his room to weigh the whole question in his mind, and see by what means,
while gratifying his thirst for vengeance, he should best avoid that
degree of exposure which would be fatal to the future happiness of my
mother.

In this lay all the difficulty. To demand satisfaction from Rutledge
required that he should specify the nature of the injury, open the whole
history of the slander, and, while giving contradiction to all that was
false, publish to the world a true version of an incident that, up to
that moment, he had never confided to his dearest friend. Terrible as
seemed the task of such a revelation, it was nothing in comparison with
what he judged would be the effect upon my mother when she came to learn
the course of events which preceded her marriage.

And now this must be given to the world, with all that accompaniment
of gossip and scandal such a