a bit of paper, with a line written in
pencil.

"'Tis from a lady, who waits below," said the girl.

Mrs. Woffington went again to the window, and there she saw getting out
of a coach, and attended by James Burdock, Mabel Vane, who had sent up
her name on the back of an old letter.

"What shall I do?" said Triplet, as soon as he recovered the first
stunning effects of this _contretemps._ To his astonishment, Mrs.
Woffington bade the girl show the lady upstairs. The girl went down on
this errand.

"But _you_ are here," remonstrated Triplet. "Oh, to be sure, you can
go into the other room. There is plenty of time to avoid her," said
Triplet, in a very natural tremor. "This way, madam!"

Mrs. Woffington stood in the middle of the room like a statue.

"What does she come here for?" said she, sternly. "You have not told me
all."

"I don't know," cried poor Triplet, in dismay; "and I think the Devil
brings her here to confound me. For Heaven's sake, retire! What will
become of us all? There will be murder, I know there will!"

To his horror, Mrs. Woffington would not move. "You are on her side,"
said she slowly, with a concentration of spite and suspicion. She looked
frightful at this moment. "All the better for me," added she, with a
world of female malignity.

Triplet could not make head against this blow; he gasped, and pointed
piteously to the inner door. "No; I will know two things: the course she
means to take, and the terms you two are upon."

By this time Mrs. Vane's light foot was heard on the stair, and Triplet
sank into a chair. "They will tear one another to pieces," said he.

A tap came to the door.

He looked fearfully round for the woman whom jealousy had so speedily
turned from an angel to a fiend; and saw with dismay that she had
actually had the hardihood to slip round and enter the picture again.
She had not quite arranged herself when her rival knocked.

Triplet dragged himself to the door. Before he opened it, he looked
fearfully over his shoulder, and received a glance of cool, bitter,
deadly hostility, that boded ill both for him and his visitor. Triplet's
apprehensions were not unreasonable. His benefactress and this sweet
lady were rivals!

Jealousy is a dreadful passion, it makes us tigers. The jealous always
thirst for blood. At any moment when reason is a little weaker than
usual, they are ready to kill the thing they hate, or the thing they
love.

Any open collision between the