nnocence. He merely wants to get the case absolutely clear, for
the final confounding of her accusers. At first, all goes smoothly. Mrs.
Dane's answers to his questions are pat and plausible. Then she makes a
single, almost imperceptible, slip of the tongue: she says, "We had
governesses," instead of "I had governesses." Sir Daniel pricks up his
ears: "We? You say you were an only child. Who's we?" "My cousin and I,"
she answers. Sir Daniel thinks it odd that he has not heard of this
cousin before; but he continues his interrogatory without serious
suspicion. Then it occurs to him to look up, in a topographical
dictionary, the little town of Tawhampton, where Mrs. Dane spent her
youth. He reads the bald account of it, ending thus, "The living is a
Vicarage, net yearly value L376, and has been held since 1875 by"--and
he turns round upon her--"by the Rev. Francis Hindemarsh! Hindemarsh?"

Mrs. Dane: He was my uncle.

Sir Daniel: Your uncle?

Mrs. Dane: Sir Daniel, I've done wrong to hide from you that Felicia
Hindemarsh was my cousin.

Sir Daniel: Felicia Hindemarsh was your cousin!

Mrs. Dane: Can't you understand why I have hidden it? The whole
affair was so terrible.

And so she stumbles on, from one inevitable admission to another, until
the damning truth is clear that she herself is Felicia Hindemarsh, the
central, though not the most guilty, figure in a horrible scandal.

This scene is worthy of study as an excellent type of what may be called
the judicial peripety, the crushing cross-examination, in which it is
possible to combine the tension of the detective story with no small
psychological subtlety. In Mr. Jones's scene, the psychology is obvious
enough; but it is an admirable example of nice adjustment without any
obtrusive ingenuity. The whole drama, in short, up to the last act is,
in the exact sense of the word, a well-made play--complex yet clear,
ingenious yet natural. In the comparative weakness of the last act we
have a common characteristic of latter-day drama, which will have to be
discussed in due course.

In this case we have a peripety of external fortune. For a
clearly-marked moral peripety we may turn to the great scene between
Vivie and her mother in the second act of _Mrs. Warren's Profession._
Whatever may be thought of the matter of this scene, its movement is
excellent. After a short, sharp opening, which reveals to Mrs. Warren
the unfilial dispositions of her daughter