hey send nasty
gossip about people they wish to injure."

"You don't mean that!" exclaimed the man.

"Of course I do," cried she. "I know that it's true! I know that Robbie
Walling paid fifteen thousand dollars for some trumpery volumes that
they got out! And how do you suppose the paper gets its gossip?"

"I didn't know," said Montague. "But I never dreamed--"

"Why," exclaimed Mrs. Winnie, "their mail is full of blue and gold
monogram stationery! I've known guests to sit down and write gossip
about their hostesses in their own homes. Oh, you've no idea of
people's vileness!"

"I had some idea," said Montague, after a pause.--"That was why I
wished to protect you."

"I don't wish to be protected!" she cried, vehemently. "I'll not give
them the satisfaction. They wish to make me give you up, and I'll not
do it, for anything they can say!"

Montague sat with knitted brows, gazing into the fire. "When I read
that paragraph," he said slowly. "I could not bear to think of the
unhappiness it might cause you. I thought of how much it might disturb
your husband--"

"My husband!" echoed Mrs. Winnie.

There was a hard tone in her voice, as she went on. "He will fix it up
with them," she said,--"that's his way. There will be nothing more
published, you can feel sure of that."

Montague sat in silence. That was not the reply he had expected, and it
rather disconcerted him.

"If that were all--" he said, with hesitation. "But I could not know. I
thought that the paragraph might disturb him for another reason--that
it might be a cause of unhappiness between you and him--"

There was a pause. "You don't understand," said Mrs. Winnie, at last.

Without turning his head he could see her hands, as they lay upon her
knees. She was moving them nervously. "You don't understand," she
repeated.

When she began to' speak again, it was in a low, trembling voice. "I
must tell you," she said; "I have felt sure that you did not know."

There was another pause. She hesitated, and her hands trembled; then
suddenly she hurried on.--"I wanted you to know. I do not love my
husband. I am not bound to him. He has nothing to say in my affairs."

Montague sat rigid, turned to stone. He was half dazed by the words. He
could feel Mrs. Winnie's gaze fixed upon him; and he could feel the hot
flush that spread over her throat and cheeks.

"It--it was not fair for you not to know," she whispered. And her voice
died away, and there was agai