He had judged without partiality. He would condemn without mercy. He

would punish without remorse.

Herbert still faced the back of the lounge, but he had slipped his

hand from the relaxing hold of hers, and pressed it over his eyes.

She could not seek to possess herself of it again. Winston was not

the only dupe of the nefarious fraud, the betrayal of which had

overtaken the guilty pair thus late in their career of duplicity.

Yet, however severely she had suffered in heart from their falsehood

and her brother's intolerance, no stain would rest upon her name,

while, terminate as the affair might, the disgraceful revelation

would shipwreck her brother's happiness for life, if not bring upon

the old homestead a storm of scandal that would leave no more trace

of the honorable reputation heretofore borne by its owners than

remained of the smiling plenty of the cities of the plain after the

fiery wrath of the Lord had overthrown them.

Mrs. Aylett resumed the suspended operation of cutting the leaves of

her new monthly; fluttered them to be certain that none were

overlooked; laid down the periodical; brushed the scattered bits of

paper from her silken skirt, and retaining the paper-knife--a costly

toy of mother-of-pearl and silver--changed her position so as to

look her husband directly in the eye.

"I believe I can give you the information you lack," she said, in

curiously constrained accents, the concentration of some feeling to

which she could or would not grant other vent. "Clara Louise Lennox

obtained a divorce from her first husband on the grounds of

drunkenness, failure to maintain her, infidelity, and personal

ill-usage. He came home from sea, as you have said, the battered

ruin of a MAN, fallen beyond hope of redemption. There was no law,

written or moral, which obliged her, when once freed from it, to

carry about with her and thrust upon the notice of others the

loathsome body of death typified by his name and her matronly title.

She commenced life anew at her father's death, contrary, let me say

to the advice of all her friends, if I except the mother, who could

refuse nothing to her favorite daughter. The scheme was boldly

conceived. You have admitted that it was successfully carried out.

In New York the family were not known beyond the circle with which

they disdained to associate when the lodging-house business was

abandoned. There were a thousand chances to one that in her new

abode Miss Dorrance would be identified by some busybody with the

divorced Mrs. Lennox. She risked her fortunes upon the one chance,

and won. I do not expect you to believe that the impostor was moved

by any other consideration in contracting her second marriage than

the wish to seek the more exalted sphere of society and influence

which Fate had hitherto denied her. You would sneer were I to hint,

however remotely, at a regard for her high-born suitor the dashing,

but dissipated officer had never awakened--"




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