al.

She had only to call to mind the critical situation of Blanche--and to
see her purpose before her plainly. Assuming that she could open the
coming interview by peaceably proving that her claim on Geoffrey was
beyond dispute, she might then, without fear of misconception, take the
tone of a friend instead of an enemy, and might, with the best grace,
assure Mrs. Glenarm that she had no rivalry to dread, on the one easy
condition that she engaged to make Geoffrey repair the evil that he had
done. "Marry him without a word against it to dread from _me_--so long
as he unsays the words and undoes the deeds which have thrown a doubt
on the marriage of Arnold and Blanche." If she could but bring the
interview to this end--there was the way found of extricating Arnold, by
her own exertions, from the false position in which she had innocently
placed him toward his wife! Such was the object before her, as she now
stood on the brink of her interview with Mrs. Glenarm.

Up to this moment, she had firmly believed in her capacity to realize
her own visionary project. It was only when she had her foot on the step
that a doubt of the success of the coming experiment crossed her mind.
For the first time, she saw the weak point in her own reasoning. For
the first time, she felt how much she had blindly taken for granted, in
assuming that Mrs. Glenarm would have sufficient sense of justice and
sufficient command of temper to hear her patiently. All her hopes of
success rested on her own favorable estimate of a woman who was a total
stranger to her! What if the first words exchanged between them proved
the estimate to be wrong?

It was too late to pause and reconsider the position. Julius Delamayn
had noticed her hesitation, and was advancing toward her from the end
of the terrace. There was no help for it but to master her own
irresolution, and to run the risk boldly. "Come what may, I have gone
too far to stop _here._" With that desperate resolution to animate her,
she opened the glass door at the top of the steps, and went into the
room.

Mrs. Glenarm rose from the piano. The two women--one so richly, the
other so plainly dressed; one with her beauty in its full bloom, the
other worn and blighted; one with society at her feet, the other an
outcast living under the bleak shadow of reproach--the two women stood
face to face, and exchanged the cold courtesies of salute between
strangers, in silence.

The first to meet the tri