old me she
followed him, and that the child was his."

"He said so."

General Laurance's voice was husky, and a grey hue had settled upon
his features.

"You paid him to proclaim the base falsehood! You whom I trusted so
fully. Father, where is my child?"

No answer; and the curtain rose on the fair young mother, came
forward with her own golden hair in full splendour.

Involuntarily the audience testified their recognition of the
beautiful actress who now appeared for the first time, looking as
when she made her _debut_ long ago in Paris. She was at the asylum,
with a young child clinging to her finger, tottering at her side, and
as she guided its steps, and hushed it in her arms, many mothers
among the spectators felt the tears rush to their eyes.

Walking with the infant cradled on her bosom, she passed twice across
the stage, then paused beneath the box, and murmured:

"Papa's baby--Papa's own precious baby!" and her splendid eyes humid
with tears looked full, straight into those of her husband.

It was the first time they had met during the evening, and something
she saw in that quivering face made her heart ache with the old
numbing agony. Cuthbert could scarcely restrain himself from leaping
down upon the stage and clasping her in his arms; but she moved away,
and the sorely smitten husband bowed his face in his hand, luckily
shielded from public view by the position in which he sat.

The dinner scene ensued, and the abrupt announcement of the second
marriage. The anguish and despair of the repudiated wife were
portrayed with a vividness, a marvellous eloquence and passionate
fervour that surpassed all former exhibitions of her genius, and the
people rose, and applauded, as audiences sometimes do, when the
magnetic wave rolls from the heart and brain on the stage to those of
the men and women who watch and listen completely _en rapport_.

The life of the actress began, the struggle to provide for her child,
the constant care to elude discovery, the application for legal
advice, the statement of her helplessness, the attempt to secure the
license; all were represented, and at last the meeting with her
husband in the theatre.

Gradually the pathos melted away, she was the stern relentless
outraged wife, intent only upon revenge. She spared not even the
interview in which the faithless husband sought her presence; and as
Cuthbert watched her, repeating the sentences that had so galled his
pride, he as