y.

'Rue des Ecuries, 27. Naturally, you can't see her to-night.'

'No'--said Fenwick, sitting down again, like a man in a dream--'no.
Did she say anything else?'

'She mentioned something about a debt you owed her,' said Welby,
coldly--'some matter that she had only just discovered. I had no
concern with that.'

Fenwick's face, which had become deathly pale, was suddenly overspread
with a rush of crimson. More almost than by the revelation of his long
deception as to his wife was he humiliated and tortured by these words
relating to his debt to Morrison on Welby's lips. This successful
rival, this fine gentleman!--admitted to his sordid affairs. He rose
uncertainly, pulling himself passionately together.

'Now that she has reappeared, I shall pay my debt to Miss Morrison--if
it exists,' he said, haughtily; 'she need be in no fear as to that.
Well, now then'--he leaned heavily on the mantelpiece, his face still
twitching--'you know, Mr. Welby--by this accident--the secret of my
life. My wife left me--for the maddest, emptiest reasons--and she took
our child with her. I did everything I could to discover them. It was
all in vain--and if Miss Morrison cannot enlighten me, I am as much
in the dark to-night as I was yesterday, whether my wife is alive--or
dead. Is there anything more to be said?'

'By God, yes!' cried Welby, with a sudden gesture of passion,
approaching Fenwick. 'There is everything to be said!'

Fenwick was silent. Their eyes met.

'When you first made acquaintance with Lord Findon,' said Welby,
controlling himself, 'you made him--you made all of us--believe that
you were an unmarried man?'

'I did. It was the mistake--the awkwardness of a moment. I hadn't your
easy manners! I was a raw country fellow--and I hadn't the courage,
the mere self-possession, to repair it.'

'You let Madame de Pastourelles sit to you,' said Welby,
steadily--'week after week, month after month--you accepted her
kindness--you became her friend. Later on, you allowed her to advise
you--write to you--talk to you about marrying, when your means should
be sufficient--without ever allowing her to guess for a moment that
you had already a wife and child!'

'That is true,' said Fenwick, nodding. 'The second false step was the
consequence of the first.'

'The consequence! You had but to say a word--one honest word! Then,
when your conduct, I suppose--I don't dare to judge you--had driven
your wife away--for twelve years'--