"Oh, I was the husband and you were the wife;
 
We met, and we married, and parted.
 
Our meeting was happy, our marriage was :
 
Our parting left each broken-hearted.
 
Our hearts are now cured of their and shame;
 
We've learned each our lesson of sorrow;
 
'Tis to need the same lesson again,
 
And so I will bid you 'good-morrow.'"
 
 
Sir Rupert's study, which was one of the most comfortable apartments in the house, was placed in the east angle of the building, so that two of the walls were formed by the outside of the house. It was lighted by four French windows, two of which were generally open in fine weather, looking out on to the terrace.
 
It was furnished in a heavy, stately fashion, with oaken furniture, upholstered in green morocco, and the walls, hung with dark-green paper, were surrounded with low oaken bookcases, the height of a man, filled with well-selected volumes. On top of these cases were placed choice of art, consisting of red Egyptian water-jars, delicate figures in Dresden china, and huge bowls of , bizarre with red and blue dragons. with these, of Hindoo , bronze gods from Japan, and fetishes from Central Africa.
 
Dainty water-colour pictures in slender frames lightened the sombre of the walls, and between these were highly polished steel battle-axes, old-fashioned guns, delicate but deadly pistols of modern workmanship, and dangerous-looking swords, all arranged in symmetrical patterns. The floor of polished oak was covered with skins from American prairies, opossum rugs from Australian plains, striped tiger-skins from Indian jungles, and white bear-skins from the cold north; while in the centre of the room stood the desk, piled with books and loose papers. The whole room had a workmanlike appearance and an air of literary comfort attractive to a bookish man.
 
On this night the two French windows were wide open, and into the room floated the rich perfumes of the flowers, broken by the smell of a cigar which Sir Rupert was smoking as he sat writing at his desk. At his feet on either side were heavy books, carelessly thrown down after use, and sheets of paper, while amid the confused mass on the desk itself was the red blotting-pad and the white note-paper on which he was writing. There was a lamp on his left, from beneath the green shade of which welled a flood of heavy yellow light--so heavy that it seemed to rest on the floor and be unable to rise to the ceiling, where the shade made a dark circle.
 
Within--the yellow lighted room, the silent man writing rapidly, the steady ticking of the clock, and the tobacco . Without--the close night, moonless and starless, the air with heat, the faint flower-odours, and the sombre masses of the trees sleeping dully under the soporific influence of the atmosphere.
 
There was something in the uncanny stillness of the night, a kind of premonition of coming , which would have certainly the nerves of a highly-strung man; but Sir Rupert did not believe in nerves, and wrote on carelessly without giving a thought to the strange prophetic feeling in the air.
 
If he had only known he would have fallen on his knees and prayed for the protection of his angel until the red dawn broke through the shadows of the fatal night.
 
The rapid scratching of the pen, the sharp tick of the clock, and suddenly a distinct knock at the door. Sir Rupert raised his head with an expectant look on his face.
 
"Come in!"
 
A woman entered, tall and stately, arrayed in sombre garments; she entered slowly, with a step, and paused in the shadow before the desk. Sir Rupert, his eyes dazzled by the glare of the lamp, could see her face but indistinctly in the semi-twilight, and only heard her short hurried breathing, which great .
 
"Mrs. Belswin, is it not?"
 
The woman placed one hand on her throat, as if striving to keep down an attack of hysteria, and answered in a low, choked voice--
 
"Yes!"
 
"I beg your pardon, I did not hear what you said, madam."
 
"I--I am Mrs. Belswin."
 
Sir Rupert started, and passed his hand across his face with a confused sense of memory, but, dismissing the sudden flash of thought, he arose to his feet, and politely to a chair.
 
"Will you not be seated, Mrs. Belswin?"
 
She was foolish to betray her identity, but whether it was that her resolution failed her, or that her nerve gave way, or that she to discovery, with an appealing cry she fell on her knees.
 
"Rupert!"
 
"God!"
 
He tore the shade off the lamp. The heavy, concentrated, yellow light spread through the room in clear waves of , and there on the floor, with wild, white face, with outstretched, appealing hands, with the agony of despair in her eyes, he saw his divorced wife.
 
"Rupert!"
 
Step by step he retreated before the kneeling figure, with startled eyes and dry lips, until he leant against the wall, and thrust out cruel hands to keep off this spectre of the past.
 
"You!"
 
"Yes. I--your wife!"
 
"My wife!"
 
He burst out into a laugh, on which, like a wounded snake, she dragged herself painfully along the floor until she reached his feet.
 
"Keep off," he whispered, in a voice; "keep off, you shameless creature!"
 
"But hear me."
 
"Hear you!--hear you!" said Sir Rupert, in a tone of concentrated scorn. "I heard you twenty years ago. The law heard you; the world heard you. What can you say to me now that I did not hear then?"
 
"Pity me. Oh, Rupert, pity me!"
 
"Pity you! You that had no pity on me! You that ruined my life--that blasted my name--that made my home ! Pity you! I am not an angel! I am a man."
 
The woman twisted her hands together, and burst out crying into floods of hot bitter tears that burned and seared her cheeks--those cheeks that burned with shame at the righteous scorn of the man who had trusted her and whom she had wronged.
 
"What are you doing here?" said Pethram, harshly. "Rise and answer me. Don't lie there with your crocodile tears."
 
"Have you no mercy?"
 
"None for such as you."
 
At these cruel words she arose to her feet with an effort and leaned heavily against the wall, while her husband took his seat in stern anger, as if she were a criminal brought before him for sentence.
 
"You are Mrs. Belswin?"
 
"Yes."
 
"My daughter's companion?"
 
"She is mine as well as yours."
 
"Silence!" he said, sternly. "Do not dare to claim the child which you left so cruelly twenty years ago. Have you no shame?"
 
"Shame!" she replied bitterly. "Yes, I have shame. I know what shame is--twenty years of bitter, cruel shame. God of mercy, twenty years!"
 
"Twenty thousand years would not be too much for your sin."
 
"Are you so pure yourself that you can judge me so harshly?"
 
"I am not here to argue such a question," he said, coldly, with a cruel look in his eyes. "I want to know what you are doing here."
 
"I came as a companion to my daughter."
 
"And you told her----"
 
"I told her nothing," said Mrs. Belswin, . "So help me, Heaven! she knows nothing. I am her companion, her paid companion--nothing more."
 
"I am glad you have had the sense to spare my daughter the story of your shame. How did you obtain............