was to be
your wife."

"Has she never spoken to you of love since? Did she not warn you from
the house in her faint struggle after virtue? Did she not whistle you
back again when she found the struggle too much for her? When I asked
you to the house, she bade you not come. When I desired that you
might never darken my eyes again, did she not seek you? With whom was
she walking on the villa grounds by the river banks when she resolved
that she would leave all her duties and desert me? Will you dare
to say that you were not then in her confidence? With whom was she
talking when she had the effrontery to come and meet me at the house
of the Prime Minister, which I was bound to attend? Have you not been
with her this very winter in her foreign home?"

"Of course I have,--and you sent her a message by me."

"I sent no message. I deny it. I refused to be an accomplice in your
double guilt. I laid my command upon you that you should not visit my
wife in my absence, and you disobeyed, and you are an adulterer. Who
are you that you are to come for ever between me and my wife?"

"I never injured you in thought or deed. I come to you now because I
have seen a printed letter which contains a gross libel upon myself."

"It is printed then?" he asked, in an eager tone.

"It is printed; but it need not, therefore, be published. It is a
libel, and should not be published. I shall be forced to seek redress
at law. You cannot hope to regain your wife by publishing false
accusations against her."

"They are true. I can prove every word that I have written. She dare
not come here, and submit herself to the laws of her country. She is
a renegade from the law, and you abet her in her sin. But it is not
vengeance that I seek. 'Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.'"

"It looks like vengeance, Mr. Kennedy."

"Is it for you to teach me how I shall bear myself in this time of my
great trouble?" Then suddenly he changed; his voice falling from one
of haughty defiance to a low, mean, bargaining whisper. "But I'll
tell you what I'll do. If you will say that she shall come back again
I'll have it cancelled, and pay all the expenses."

"I cannot bring her back to you."

"She'll come if you tell her. If you'll let them understand that she
must come they'll give way. You can try it at any rate."

"I shall do nothing of the kind. Why should I ask her to submit
herself to misery?"

"Misery! What misery? Why should she be miserable? Must a wo