m head to foot. "He hesitates!" she said to herself, faintly. "Good
God! he hesitates!"

Lady Jane sternly repeated her question.

"Is that lady your wife?"

He roused his scoundrel-courage, and said the fatal word:

"No!"

Mrs. Vanborough staggered back. She caught at the white curtains of the
window to save herself from falling, and tore them. She looked at her
husband, with the torn curtain clenched fast in her hand. She asked
herself, "Am I mad? or is he?"

Lady Jane drew a deep breath of relief. He was not married! He was
only a profligate single man. A profligate single man is shocking--but
reclaimable. It is possible to blame him severely, and to insist on his
reformation in the most uncompromising terms. It is also possible to
forgive him, and marry him. Lady Jane took the necessary position
under the circumstances with perfect tact. She inflicted reproof in the
present without excluding hope in the future.

"I have made a very painful discovery," she said, gravely, to
Mr. Vanborough. "It rests with _you_ to persuade me to forget it!
Good-evening!"

She accompanied the last words by a farewell look which aroused Mrs.
Vanborough to frenzy. She sprang forward and prevented Lady Jane from
leaving the room.

"No!" she said. "You don't go yet!"

Mr. Vanborough came forward to interfere. His wife eyed him with a
terrible look, and turned from him with a terrible contempt. "That man
has lied!" she said. "In justice to myself, I insist on proving it!"
She struck a bell on a table near her. The servant came in. "Fetch my
writing-desk out of the next room." She waited--with her back turned on
her husband, with her eyes fixed on Lady Jane. Defenseless and alone
she stood on the wreck of her married life, superior to the husband's
treachery, the lawyer's indifference, and her rival's contempt. At
that dreadful moment her beauty shone out again with a gleam of its old
glory. The grand woman, who in the old stage days had held thousands
breathless over the mimic woes of the scene, stood there grander than
ever, in her own woe, and held the three people who looked at her
breathless till she spoke again.

The servant came in with the desk. She took out a paper and handed it to
Lady Jane.

"I was a singer on the stage," she said, "when I was a single woman. The
slander to which such women are exposed doubted my marriage. I provided
myself with the paper in your hand. It speaks for itself. Even the
highest societ