but Andre's friend, Favrolles, adjures
him to keep his head; and the three men proceed to thrash the matter out
as calmly as possible, with the result that, in the course of
half-an-hour or so, it seems to be proved beyond all doubt that the
woman Andre adores, and whom he has just married, is a treacherous spy,
who sells to tyrannical foreign governments the lives of political
exiles and the honour of the men who fall into her toils. The crushing
suspicion is ultimately disproved, by one of the tricks in which Sardou
delighted; but that does not here concern us. Artificial as are its
causes and its consequences, the "scene of the three men," while it
lasts, holds us breathless and absorbed; and Andre's fall from the
pinnacle of happiness to the depth of misery, is a typical peripety.

Equally typical and infinitely more tragic is another postnuptial
peripety--the scene of the mutual confession of Angel Clare and Tess in
Mr. Hardy's great novel. As it stands on the printed page, this scene is
a superb piece of drama. Its greatness has been obscured in the English
theatre by the general unskilfulness of the dramatic version presented.
One magnificent scene does not make a play. In America, on the other
hand, the fine acting of Mrs. Fiske secured popularity for a version
which was, perhaps, rather better than that which we saw in England.

I have said that dramatic peripeties are not infrequent in real life;
and their scene, as is natural, is often laid in the law courts. It is
unnecessary to recall the awful "reversal of fortune" that overtook one
of the most brilliant of modern dramatists. About the same period,
another drama of the English courts ended in a startling and terrible
peripety. A young lady was staying as a guest with a half-pay officer
and his wife. A valuable pearl belonging to the hostess disappeared; and
the hostess accused her guest of having stolen it. The young lady, who
had meanwhile married, brought an action for slander against her quondam
friend. For several days the case continued, and everything seemed to be
going in the plaintiff's favour. Major Blank, the defendant's husband,
was ruthlessly cross-examined by Sir Charles Russell, afterwards Lord
Chief Justice of England, with a view to showing that he was the real
thief. He made a very bad witness, and things looked black against him.
The end was nearing, and every one anticipated a verdict in the
plaintiff's favour, when there came a sudden c