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—­”

Mr. Aylett lifted his hand, smiling more evilly than before.

“Excuse the interruption! but after your statement of the fact that such sentimental asseverations would be futile, you waste time in recapitulating the loves of the lady aforementioned, and we in hearing them.  I think I express the opinion of the audience—­fit, but few—­when I say that we require no other evidence than that afforded by the story I have told of Mrs. Lennox’s susceptibility and capacity for affection.  We are willing to take for granted that the latter was illimitable.”

“As you like!” idly tapping the nails of her left hand with the knife.  “Is there anything else pertaining to this history into which you would like to inquire?”

It was a sight to curdle the blood about one’s heart, this duel between husband and wife, with double-edged blades, wreathed with flowers.  Mr. Aylett’s attitude of lazy indifference was not exceeded by Clara’s proud languor.  He laughed a little at the last question.

“I have speculated somewhat—­having nothing else in particular to engage my mind on my way home—­upon the point I named just now, and upon one other akin to it.  All that the novel needs to round it off neatly is an encounter between the real and the quasi consorts.  I cannot specify them by name, in consequence of the uncertainty I have mentioned.  One was a bona-fide husband—­the other a bogus article, let New York divorce laws decide what they will, provided always that the fallen Julius had not bidden farewell to this lower earth before his loyal Louise plighted her faith to her Southern gallant.  Death is the Alexander of the universe.  There is no retying the knots he has cut.”

From the pertinacity with which he returned to the question one could discern his actual anxiety to have it settled.  Mabel understood that the only salve of possible application to his outraged pride and love was the discovery that Clara had been really a widow when he wedded her.  The divorce and subsequent deception were sins of heinous dye against his ideas of respectability and unspotted honor, but he would never forgive the woman who had had two living husbands, freed from the former though she was by a legal fiction.