r! Oh, I see, his--"

"His wife!"

"His wife! Why, then, Mr. Vane's married?"

"Yes."

"Oh, look there!--Oh, look here now! Well, but, good Heavens! she wasn't
to know you were there, perhaps?"

"No."

"But then I let the cat out of the bag?"

"Yes."

"But, good gracious! there will be some serious mischief!"

"No doubt of it."

"And it is all my fault?"

"Yes."

"I've played the deuce with their married happiness?"

"Probably."

"And ten to one if you are not incensed against me too?"

Mrs. Woffington replied by looking him in the face, and turning her back
upon him. She walked hastily to the window, threw it open, and looked
out of it, leaving poor Triplet to very unpleasant reflections. She was
so angry with him she dared not trust herself to speak.

"Just my luck," thought he. "I had a patron and a benefactress; I have
betrayed them both." Suddenly an idea struck him. "Madam," said he,
timorously, "see what these fine gentlemen are! What business had he,
with a wife at home, to come and fall in love with you? I do it forever
in my plays--I am obliged--they would be so dull else; but in _real_
life to do it is abominable."

"You forget, sir," replied Mrs. Woffington, without moving, "that I
am an actress--a plaything for the impertinence of puppies and the
treachery of hypocrites. Fool! to think there was an honest man in the
world, and that he had shone on me!"

With these words she turned, and Triplet was shocked to see the change
in her face. She was pale, and her black, lowering brows were gloomy and
terrible. She walked like a tigress to and fro, and Triplet dared not
speak to her. Indeed she seemed but half conscious of his presence. He
went for nobody with her. How little we know the people we eat and go to
church and flirt with! Triplet had imagined this creature an incarnation
of gayety, a sportive being, the daughter of smiles, the bride of mirth;
needed but a look at her now to see that her heart was a volcano, her
bosom a boiling gulf of fiery lava. She walked like some wild creature;
she flung her hands up to heaven with a passionate despair, before
which the feeble spirit of her companion shrank and cowered; and, with
quivering lips and blazing eyes, she burst into a torrent of passionate
bitterness.

"But who is Margaret Woffington," she cried, "that she should pretend
to honest love, or feel insulted by the proffer of a stolen regard? And
what have we to do with homes, or he