, had greatness thrust upon her;
and the weight of it bowed her to the earth. The earth? As she read on,
the earth seemed to crumble away from under her feet, leaving her
baseless and alone before that terrifying apocalypse. Wyndham had
trained her intelligence till it could appreciate the force of every
chapter in his book of revelations. At last she saw herself as she was.
And yet--could that be she? That mixture of vanity, stupidity, and
passion? To be sure, he had been careful to give her brown hair instead
of tell-tale red, and skillfully to alter the plot of her life with all
details of time and place; but--what had he said? "Light as air, fluent
as water, a being mingled of fire and a little earth; fickle as the wind
that blew her in a wavering line across the surface of things." "Modern,
and of stuff so fine that it chafed under the very breath of
disapproval; and yet with a little malleable heart in it compounded of
the most primeval of affections." She turned over the pages; everywhere
she came upon the same thing. Now the phrases were spun out fine, they
were subtle, they seemed to cling round her and stifle her; now they
were short and keen, and they cut like knives. "Women may be divided
into three classes--the virtuous, the flirtuous, and the non-virtuous.
The middle class is by far the largest. It shades off finely into the
two extremes. Laura belonged to it." "The moon was up, and Diana, divine
sportswoman, was abroad, hunting big game." "Laura had made a virtue of
necessity. She said that proved the necessity of virtue."

Oh, the cruelty of it! Would Ted, would Vincent, have done this if they
had had it in their power? True, they had reproached her; but it was to
her face, alone in her own drawing-room, where she had a chance of
defending herself. _They_ would not have held her up to public scorn.
And they had some right to blame her,--she saw that now. But what had
she done to deserve this from Langley? How had he found it in his heart
to speak against her? She had loved him. Yes, she had known many a
passing pain, but she had never really suffered until now. That was a
part of her education that had been neglected hitherto. Only an
accomplished student of human nature could have coached her through the
highest branches of it.

Having set the scandal successfully afloat, the society papers began to
utter a feeble protest against it--thus increasing their own reputation
for a refined morality. But they