xcitedly. "It is more than disgraceful. It
is abominable. You do not know all yet. I will tell you. I was young; I
was but a boy. I go to America when I am twenty-one, to travel, to see
the world. I make acquaintances. I get into a bad set, what you call
undesirable. I fall in love. I walk into a net. She was pretty, a pretty
widow, all love, all soul; without friends. I protect her. I marry her.
I have a little money. I have five thousand pounds. She knew that. She
spent it. I was a fool. In a year it was gone." Dare's face had become
white with rage. "And then she told me why she married me. I became
enraged. There was a quarrel, and I left her. I had no more money. She
left me alone, and a year after we are divorced. I never see her or hear
of her again. I return to Europe. I live by my voice in Paris. It is
five years ago. I have bought my experience. I put it from my mind. And
now"--his hands trembled with anger--"now that she thinks I have money
again, now, when in some way she hears how I have come to Vandon, she
dares to came back and say she is my wife."

"Dare," said Mr. Alwynn, sternly, "what excuse have you for never
mentioning this before--before you became engaged to Ruth?"

"What!" burst out Dare, "tell Ruth! Tell _her_! _Quelle idee._ I would
never speak to her of what might give her pain. I would keep all from
her that would cause her one moment's grief. Besides," he added,
conclusively, "it is not always well to talk of what has gone before. It
is not for her happiness or mine. She has been, one sees it well,
brought up since a young child very strictly. About some things she has
fixed ideas. If I had told her of these things which are passed away and
gone, she might not,"--and Dare looked gravely at Mr. Alwynn--"she might
not think so well of me."

This view of the case was quite a new one to Mr. Alwynn. He looked back
at Dare with hopeless perplexity in his pained eyes. To one who
throughout life has regarded the supremacy of certain truths and
principles of actions as fixed, and recognized as a matter of course by
all the world, however imperfectly obeyed by individuals, the discovery
comes as a shock, which is at the moment overwhelming, when these same
truths and principles are seen to be entirely set aside, and their very
existence ignored by others.

Where there is no common ground on which to meet, speech is unavailing
and mere waste of time. It is like shouting to a person at a distance
wh