sure you have no notion of my business here.
You shall know it; it is important, but brief."

"Madam," said the other, sitting upright,
and turning slightly pale. Harriet extended
her hand with a gesture habitual to her, and
said:

"Stay. You must hear me for your own sake.
You will do well to hear me quietly, and to give
me your very best attention. If I do not make
the impression on you which I desire and intend
to make, there is one other person beside myself
who will suffer by my failure, and that person is
you."

She dropped her hand and drew her breath.
Mrs. P. Ireton Bembridge looked at her with
frightened distended eyes, speechless.

"You think I have come on a false pretext,
and I have done so, to a certain extent. You lost
an article of ornament or dress at Homburg?"

"I did—a locket," said Mrs. P. Ireton Bembridge,
a little relieved, and glancing unconsciously
towards her silver purse, which was at
hand, and through whose meshes gold shone.

"I know, but I have not brought you your
locket. You lost something else at Homburg,
and I have brought it, to prove that you had
better hear me, and that you must." And then
Harriet laid upon the table, near by the side of
the silver purse, a crushed and faded flower,
whose rich luscious blossom had been of the
deepest crimson in the time of its bloom, when
it had nestled against a woman's silken hair.

"What is it? What do you mean? Good
God, who are you?" said Mrs. P. Ireton
Bembridge, shrinking back as Harriet made the one
step necessary to enable her to reach the table.

"I am Stewart Routh's wife," she replied,
slowly, and without changing her tone, or
releasing the other woman trom her steady gaze.

This time Mrs. P. Ireton Bembridge sprang
to her feet, with a face as white as death.

"Don't be frightened," said Harriet, with
the faintest glimmer of a contemptuous smile,
which was the last expression having relation
to Mrs. P. Ireton Bembridge, personally, that
showed itself in her face, until the end. "I did
not come here to inspire you with any fear of
me; I did not come here on your account at all,
or on mine; but for another motive."

"What, what is it?" said her hearer,
nervously reseating herself.

"My husband's safety," said Harriet; and as
she spoke the words, Mrs. P. Ireton Bembridge
felt that an illusion was rolled away from her
for ever. He belonged to this pale stern woman,
whose unsparing eyes were fixed upon her,
whose unfaltering voice had not a tone of doubt
or weakness in it. In every line of her countenance
was the assertion of her right, against
which the other felt powerless, and in whose
presence her self-confidence was utterly subdued.

Calm and still, Harriet Routh stood before
her, her head bent forward, her hands clasped
and pressed steadily against her waist.

"I have no time to lose," she said, "and the
briefest explanation will, in this case, be the
best. When that flower fell from your hair
over the balcony at the Kursaal at Homburg, it
fell at my feet. I was on the terrace beneath.
If once, during the time you and he stood
there, my husband had looked away from you
and over the rail, he would have seen me. But
he did not. I had come to that particular spot
accidentally, though I was there that night
because I suspected, because I knew, that he was
there with you, and I would not condemn him
unseen, unconvicted."

Cowering before her, her pale face in her
shaking hands, the other woman listened.

"I heard all he said to you. Don't start; it
was very pretty. I know it all, by heart; every
intonation, every hesitation—all the lying gamut
from end to end. I heard all the story he told
you of his marriage: every incident, every
declaration, every sentiment, was a lie! He told
you he had married a poor, passionate, silly girl,
who had compromised herself through her
undisciplined and unreturned love for him, for
pity—for a man's pity for a woman! A lie. He
told you his wife was an oddity, a nervous
recluse, oblivious of all but her health and her
valetudinarian fancies; that she had no love for
him, or any one; no mind, no tastes, no
individuality; that his life was a dreary one, and
the oscillation of a heart which had never been
hers towards so irresistible a woman as you
(and he was right, so far; you are very, very
beautiful. I saw that, and granted it to myself,
at once), was no sin, no dishonesty, against her.
All a lie. Look at me, if you have the little
courage needed for looking at me, and tell me if
it could be true!"

Mrs. P. Ireton Bembridge looked at her, but
only to drop her head into her hands, and moan,
in the presence of the white face and the steady
sparkling blue eyes.

"This was the lie he told you concerning me.
The lie he told you about himself was more
important in its results; and as it flattered you,
of course you gave it ready credence. No
doubt you believe it still, though you must
know him better now. He told you a story of
his misunderstood, undervalued life; of family
pride, and grandeur, and wealth—of family ties
severed in consequence of the charitable, chivalrous,
self-sacrificing marriage he had made; of
obscurity nobly borne, and toil willingly
encountered, of talents unremittingly exercised
without fame or reward, of high aspirations and
future possibilities, if only the agency of wealth
and the incentive of love might be his. And
this flimsy tale caught your fancy and your
faith. It was so charming to fill the vacant
place in the misunderstood man's life, so
delightful to be at once queen and consoler, to
supply all the deficiencies of this deplorable
wife. It was just the programme to catch the
fancy of a woman like you, beautiful, vain, and
empty."

There was neither scorn nor anger in
Harriet's voice; there was merely a dash of
reflection, as if she had strayed for a moment from
the track of her discourse.

"But it was all a lie," she went on. "His