ou, then, for a viler character it would be
difficult to find outside the haunts of infamy," said Emerson.

Contempt and anger were suddenly blended in his manner.

"I cannot hear one to whom I am warmly attached thus assailed. You
must not speak in that style of my friends, Hartley Emerson!"

"Your friends!" There was a look of intense scorn on his face.
"Precious friends, if she represent them, truly! Major Willard is
another, mayhap?"

The face of Irene turned deadly pale at the mention of this name.

"Ha!"

Emerson bent eagerly toward his wife.

"And is that true, also?"

"What? Speak out, sir!" Irene caught her breath, and grasped the
rein of self-control which had dropped, a moment, from her hands.

"It is said that Major Willard bears you company, at times, in your
rides home from evening calls upon your precious friends."

"And you believe the story?"

"I didn't believe it," said Hartley, but in a tone that showed
doubt.

"But have changed your mind?"

"If you say it is not true--that Major Willard never entered your
carriage--I will take your word in opposition to the whole world's
adverse testimony."

But Irene could not answer. Major Willard, as the reader knows, had
ridden with her at night, and alone. But once, and only once. A few
times since then she had encountered, but never deigned to
recognize, him. In her pure heart the man was held in utter
detestation.

Now was the time for a full explanation; but pride was
aroused--strong, stubborn pride. She knew herself to stand triple
mailed in innocency--to be free from weakness or taint; and the
thought that a mean, base suspicion had entered the mind of her
husband aroused her indignation and put a seal upon her lips as to
all explanatory utterances.

"Then I am to believe the worst?" said Hartley, seeing that his wife
did not answer. "The worst, and of you!"

The tone in which this was said, as well as the words themselves,
sent a strong throb to the heart of Irene. "The worst, and of you!"
This from her husband! and involving far more in tone and manner
than in uttered language. "Then I am to believe the worst!" She
turned the sentences over in her mind. Pride, wounded self-love, a
smothered sense of indignation, blind anger, began to gather their
gloomy forces in her mind. "The worst, and of you!" How the echoes
of these words came back in constant repetition! "The worst, and of
you!"

"How often has Major Willard ridden with you