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--"