mean? I no longer recognise you. Are you
mad?"

"Mad," she laughed scornfully. "Not in
the least."

"Then if you are sane," continued her
husband, "give me a reasonable answer. What
are you doing? What do you mean by your
present conduct?"

Eugenie did not answer for a moment. There
was a curious movement about her mouth. At
last she stammered out, "that she supposed, if
her husband was alluding to the concert, that a
married woman could go where she liked, and
in such company as pleased her. She did not
understand what he complained of." She spoke
with her head turned at this time, and in rather
a strange voice.

"Complain—complain of?" echoed her
husband. "Have I not cause to complain? How
are you fulfilling the promise that you made?
Since the day of your marriage, what has your
life been? Has so much as one single thought
been given to your home duties? Your
extravagance in dress, has it not been greater
than ever? Have you not seemed to speculate
as to how you could involve me in expenses
that should be beyond all measure and reason?
Have you not pursued pleasure in a degree
that has been outrageous and inexcusable, and
now, dissatisfied with what I have provided for
you in this way, you have gone away from me,
putting yourself under the charge of another,
making your husband—a—fool before all the
world?"

Madame Grandal did not speak. There seemed
to be a strange conflict going on within her.

"And this," added her husband, "after
persuading me that you were an altered being."

"Deception—all deception," cried the girl at
last, the words coming from her with a sort of
fury in them. "Deception, and a cheat. What!
did you, or any of that wretched band which you
were got to join, suppose that you were to be
a fit match for a woman if she chose to play the
game against you? Oh!" there were tears in
her eyes now, though there was contempt in her
words. "Oh, with what follies did you please
yourselves, you and the others—with what self-
complacent sophistries did you nurse that pride
of yours! How you gloried in your fancied
strength and in our fancied weakness." Her
sobs stopped her here for a moment, but quickly
she spoke again. "And putting thus all
manliness and all real strength away from you, could
you not guess that something of added power
would be given to those weak opponents whom
you despised—that what you lost, would
certainly be gain to them." Again she paused,
unable, as it seemed, to go on, because of her
failing voice.

"Yes," she continued at last, "you put from
you what of right belonged to you—forbearance,
perseverance, patience. Were not those the real
signs of strength? In what indeed does strength
lie but in these?  Is strength shown in a fight
with women—using such weapons as might
belong to them, not those which were alone manly,
and to which—to which—she would alone
succumb." Again she stopped, but no interruption
came from her husband, and presently she went
on once more:

"Was it good," she asked, speaking more
quietly, "to lose your patience and forbearance,
those real signs of strength, and suffer
yourselves to be drawn into this—this—brawl with
women? Was it good to speak to me as you
did at first? Dictating to me as to an enemy,
not appealing to the reason of a friend?"

She stopped and seemed to wait for her
husband's answer. He was pondering with
downward glance, as if some thought had been
presented to him, now, for the first time.

"It was not good," he said, slowly.

She was by his side in a moment. "Oh,
Pierre," she cried, "do you really mean those
words?"

"And so you have been playing me a trick all
this time?" he said, taking her hand; "was
that good, Eugénie?"

Madame Grandal looked down, a little
abashed.

"And your marketing expeditions, your
saving up of your finery, your experiments in
domestic economy—all was a sham, was it?"

"Yes," replied the girl; "but then," she
added quickly, "so was the other."

"What other?"

"Why, all that has happened since our
marriage! Yes, all to plague you, and to bring you
to acknowledge——"

"To acknowledge what?"

"Why, what you have just owned, that the
STRIKE was a failure from beginning to end.
But, Pierre," she added, "there is one great
difference between the two pieces of acting."

"And what is that?" asked her husband.

"Why, that the last—the hateful part—the
part of the cruel, heartless woman, with objects
of her own to attain, in perpetual opposition to
her husband, separating her interests from his;
that shameful rôle, the very acting of which in
sport has made me hate myself, is discarded
and abandoned henceforth, to be taken up
no more for ever; while the other—the
character of the faithful housewife; the friend, not
the enemy of her life-partner; his ally, not
his antagonist—this part shall be repeated
every day till that great curtain descends which,
sooner or later, brings all our performances to
an end!"

Now ready, bound in cloth, price 6s. 6d.,
VOLUME THE SEVENTEENTH.