hat her ladyship admits to having purchased
from Violet Vere for the sum of 20 pounds, the letter which she
afterwards took with her own hands to your wife." Lady Winsleigh uttered
an angry exclamation.

"Don't interrupt me, Clara, if you please," he said, with an icy smile.
"We have so many sympathies in common that I'm sure I shall be able to
explain your unspoken meanings quite clearly." He went on, addressing
himself to Errington, who stood utterly amazed.

"Her ladyship desires me to assure you that her only excuse for her
action in this matter is, that she fully believed the reports her
friend, Sir Francis Lennox, gave her concerning your supposed intimacy
with the actress in question,--and that, believing it, she made use of
it as much as possible for the purpose of destroying your wife's peace
of mind and confidence in you. Her object was most purely feminine--love
of mischief, and the gratification of private spite! There's nothing
like frankness!" and Lord Winsleigh's face was a positive study as he
spoke. "You see,"--he made a slight gesture towards his wife, who stood
speechless, and so pale that her very lips were colorless--"her ladyship
is not in a position to deny what I have said. Excuse her silence!"

And again he smiled--that smile as glitteringly chilled as a gleam of
light on the edge of a sword. Lady Winsleigh raised her head, and her
eyes met his with a dark expression of the uttermost anger. "Spy!" she
hissed between her teeth,--then without further word or gesture, she
swept haughtily away into her dressing-room, which adjoined the boudoir,
and closed the door of communication, thus leaving the two men alone
together.

Errington felt himself to be in a most painful and awkward position. If
there was anything he more than disliked, it was a _scene_--particularly
of a domestic nature. And he had just had a glimpse into Lord and Lady
Winsleigh's married life, which, to him, was decidedly unpleasant. He
could not understand how Lord Winsleigh had become cognizant of all he
had so frankly stated--and then, why had he not told him everything at
first, without waiting to declare it in his wife's presence? Unless,
indeed, he wished to shame her? There was evidently something in the
man's disposition and character that he, Philip, could not as yet
comprehend,--something that certainly puzzled him, and filled him with
vague uneasiness.

"Winsleigh, I'm awfully sorry this has happened," he began hurri