destroyed her position in the estimation of her husband's
friends. In the face of the excuses in the drawing-room, in the
face of the empty places at the dinner-table, what could the
friendliest guests do, to any good purpose, to help the husband
and wife in their sore and sudden need? They could say good-night
at the earliest possible opportunity, and mercifully leave the
married pair to themselves.

Let it at least be recorded to the credit of the three gentlemen,
designated in these pages as A, B, and C, that they were
sufficiently ashamed of themselves and their wives to be the
first members of the dinner party who left the house. In a few
minutes more we rose to follow their example. Mrs. Germaine
earnestly requested that we would delay our departure.

"Wait a few minutes," she whispered, with a glance at her
husband. "I have something to say to you before you go."

She left us, and, taking Mr. Germaine by the arm, led him away to
the opposite side of the room. The two held a little colloquy
together in low voices. The husband closed the consultation by
lifting the wife's hand to his lips.

"Do as you please, my love," he said to her. "I leave it entirely
to you."

He sat down sorrowfully, lost in his thoughts. Mrs. Germaine
unlocked a cabinet at the further end of the room, and returned
to us, alone, carrying a small portfolio in her hand.

"No words of mine can tell you how gratefully I feel your
kindness," she said, with perfect simplicity, and with perfect
dignity at the same time. "Under very trying circumstances, you
have treated me with the tenderness and the sympathy which you
might have shown to an old friend. The one return I can make for
all that I owe to you is to admit you to my fullest confidence,
and to leave you to judge for yourselves whether I deserve the
treatment which I have received to-night."

Her eyes filled with tears. She paused to control herself. We
both begged her to say no more. Her husband, joining us, added
his entreaties to ours. She thanked us, but she persisted. Like
most sensitively organized persons, she could be resolute when
she believed that the occasion called for it.

"I have a few words more to say," she resumed, addressing my
wife. "You are the only married woman who has come to our little
dinner party. The marked absence of the other wives explains
itself. It is not for me to say whether they are right or wrong
in refusing to sit at our table. My dear husband--who knows my
whole life as well as I know it myself--expressed the wish that
we should invite these ladies. He wrongly supposed that _his_
estimate of me would be the estimate accepted by his friends; and
neither he nor I anticipated that the misfortunes of my past life
would be revealed by some person acquainted with them, whose
treachery we have yet to discover. The least I can do, by way of
acknowledging your kindness, is to place you in the same position
toward me which the other ladies now occupy. The circumstances
under which I have become the wife of Mr. Germaine are, in some
respects, very remarkable. They are related, without suppression
or reserve, in a little narrative which my husband wrote, at the
time of our marriage, for the satisfaction of one of his absent
relatives, whose good opinion he was unwilling to forfeit. The
manuscript is in this portfolio. After what has happened, I ask
you both to read it, as a personal favor to me. It is for you to
decide, when you know all, whether I am a fit person for an
honest woman to associate with or not."

She held out her hand, with a sweet, sad smile, and bid us good
night. My wife, in her impulsive way, forgot the formalities
proper to the occasion, and kissed her at parting. At that one
little act of sisterly sympathy, the fortitude which the poor
creature had preserved all through the evening gave way in an
instant. She burst into tears.

I felt as fond of her and as sorry for her as my wife. But
(unfortunately) I could not take my wife's privilege of kissing
her. On our way downstairs, I found the opportunity of saying a
cheering word to her husband as he accompanied us to the door.

"Before I open this," I remarked, pointing to the portfolio under
my arm, "my mind is made up, sir, about one thing. If I wasn't
married already, I tell you this--I should envy you your wife."

He pointed to the portfolio in his turn.

"Read what I have written there," he said; "and you will
understand what those false friends of mine have made me suffer
to-night."

The next morning my wife and I opened the portfolio, and read the
strange story of George Germaine's marriage.

The Narrative.

GEORGE GERMAINE WRITES, AND TELLS HIS OWN LOVE STORY.

CHAPTER I.

GREENWATER BROAD


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