hands, she sat perfectly unmoved by the enthusiasm which pervaded
the theater. The man behind her (annoyed, as I supposed, by the
marked indifference which she showed to the performance) tapped
her impatiently on the shoulder, as if he thought that she was
quite capable of falling asleep in her stall. The familiarity of
the action--confirming the suspicion in my mind which had already
identified him with Van Brandt--so enraged me that I said or did
something which obliged one of the gentlemen in the box to
interfere. "If you can't control yourself," he whispered, "you
had better leave us." He spoke with the authority of an old
friend. I had sense enough left to take his advice, and return to
my post at the gallery door.

A little before midnight the performance ended. The audience
began to pour out of the theater.

I drew back into a corner behind the door, facing the gallery
stairs, and watched for her. After an interval which seemed to be
endless, she and her companion appeared, slowly descending the
stairs. She wore a long dark cloak; her head was protected by a
quaintly shaped hood, which looked (on _her_) the most becoming
head-dress that a woman could wear. As the two passed me, I heard
the man speak to her in a tone of sulky annoyance.

"It's wasting money," he said, "to go to the expense of taking
_you_ to the opera."

"I am not well," she answered with her head down and her eyes on
the ground. "I am out of spirits to-night."

"Will you ride home or walk?"

"I will walk, if you please."

I followed them unperceived, waiting to present myself to her
until the crowd about them had dispersed. In a few minutes they
turned into a quiet by-street. I quickened my pace until I was
close at her side, and then I took off my hat and spoke to her.

She recognized me with a cry of astonishment. For an instant her
face brightened radiantly with the loveliest expression of
delight that I ever saw on any human countenance. The moment
after, all was changed. The charming features saddened and
hardened. She stood before me like a woman overwhelmed by
shame--without uttering a word, without taking my offered hand.

Her companion broke the silence.

"Who is this gentleman?" he asked, speaking in a foreign accent,
with an under-bred insolence of tone and manner.

She controlled herself the moment he addressed her. "This is Mr.
Germaine," she answered: "a gentleman who was very kind to me in
Scotland." She raised her eyes for a moment to mine, and took
refuge, poor soul, in a conventionally polite inquiry after my
health. "I hope you are quite well, Mr. Germaine," said the soft,
sweet voice, trembling piteously.

I made the customary reply, and explained that I had seen her at
the opera. "Are you staying in London?" I asked. "May I have the
honor of calling on you?"

Her companion answered for her before she could speak.

"My wife thanks you, sir, for the compliment you pay her. She
doesn't receive visitors. We both wish you good-night."

Saying those words, he took off his hat with a sardonic
assumption of respect; and, holding her arm in his, forced her to
walk on abruptly with him. Feeling certainly assured by this time
that the man was no other than Van Brandt, I was on the point of
answering him sharply, when Mrs. Van Brandt checked the rash
words as they rose to my lips.

"For my sake!" she whispered, over her shoulder, with an
imploring look that instantly silenced me. After all, she was
free (if she liked) to go back to the man who had so vilely
deceived and deserted her. I bowed and left them, feeling with no
common bitterness the humiliation of entering into rivalry with
Mr. Van Brandt.

I crossed to the other side of the street. Before I had taken
three steps away from her, the old infatuation fastened its hold
on me again. I submitted, without a struggle against myself, to
the degradation of turning spy and following them home. Keeping
well behind, on the opposite side of the way, I tracked them to
their own door, and entered in my pocket-book the name of the
street and the number of the house.

The hardest critic who reads these lines cannot feel more
contemptuously toward me than I felt toward myself. Could I still
love a woman after she had deliberately preferred to me a
scoundrel who had married her while he was the husband of another
wife? Yes! Knowing what I now knew, I felt that I loved her just
as dearly as ever. It was incredible, it was shocking; but it was
true. For the first time in my life, I tried to take refuge from
my sense of my own degradation in drink. I went to my club, and
joined a convivial party at a supper table, and poured glass
after glass of champagne down my throat, without feeling the
slightest sense of exhilaration, without losing for an instant


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