ked himself how he had failed to recognize his own wife?

In the meeting with the child of the second marriage, her wild
exultation, her impassioned invocation of Nemesis, was one of the
most effective passages in the drama; and it caused a shiver to creep
like a serpent over the body of the father, who pitied so tenderly
the afflicted Maud.

As the scheme of saying her own daughter, by sacrificing herself in a
nominal marriage with the man whom she hated and loathed so
intensely, developed itself, a perceptible chill fell upon the
audience; the unnaturalness of the crime asserted itself.

While she rendered almost literally the interviews at Pozzuoli and at
Naples, Cuthbert glanced at his father, and saw a purplish flush
steal from neck to forehead, but the old man's eyes never quitted the
floor. He seemed incapable of moving, Gorgonized by the beautiful
Medusa whose invectives against him were scathing, terrible.

As the play approached its close and the preparation for the
marriage, even the details of the settlement were narrated, suspense
reached its acme. Then came the letters of reprieve, the deliverance
from the bondage of Peterson's vindictive malice, the power of
establishing her claim; and when she wept her thanksgiving for
salvation, many wept in sympathy; while Regina, borne away in
breathless admiration of her mother's wonderful genius, sobbed
unrestrainedly.

When the letters of Peterson and of the lawyer were read, mapping the
line of prosecution for the recovery of the wife's rights, the father
slowly raised his eyes, and, looking drearily at his son, muttered:

"It is all over with us, Cuthbert. She has won; we are ruined. Let us
go home."

He attempted to rise, but with a glare of mingled wrath and scorn his
son held him back.

The last scene was reached; the triumphant vindication of wife and
child, the condemnation of the two who had conspired to defraud them,
the foreclosure of the mortgages, the penury of the proud
aristocrats, and the disgrace that overwhelmed them.

Finally the second wife and afflicted child came to crave leniency,
and the husband and the father pleaded for pardon; but with a
malediction upon the house that caused her wretchedness, the
broken-hearted woman retreated to the palatial home she had at last
secured, and under its upas shadow died in the arms of her daughter.

Her play contained many passages which afforded her scope for the
manifestation of her extraord