a shudder.

"That woman's face reminded me of the incident. It was an angel's face,
until the woman herself looked out of it: then you were struck by the
strange incongruity between tenement and tenant.

"That at one time she had loved her husband, I have little doubt. Vicious
women have few vices, and sordidness is not usually one of them. She had
probably married him, borne towards him by one of those waves of passion
upon which the souls of animal natures are continually rising and
falling. On possession, however, had quickly followed satiety, and from
satiety had grown the desire for a new sensation.

"They were living at Cairo at the period; her husband held an important
official position there, and by virtue of this, and of her own beauty and
tact, her house soon became the centre of the Anglo-Saxon society ever
drifting in and out of the city. The women disliked her, and copied her.
The men spoke slightingly of her to their wives, lightly of her to each
other, and made idiots of themselves when they were alone with her. She
laughed at them to their faces, and mimicked them behind their backs.
Their friends said it was clever.

"One year there arrived a young English engineer, who had come out to
superintend some canal works. He brought with him satisfactory letters
of recommendation, and was at once received by the European residents as
a welcome addition to their social circle. He was not particularly good-
looking, he was not remarkably charming, but he possessed the one thing
that few women can resist in a man, and that is strength. The woman
looked at the man, and the man looked back at the woman; and the drama
began.

"Scandal flies swiftly through small communities. Before a month, their
relationship was the chief topic of conversation throughout the quarter.
In less than two, it reached the ears of the woman's husband.

"He was either an exceptionally mean or an exceptionally noble character,
according to how one views the matter. He worshipped his wife--as men
with big hearts and weak brains often do worship such women--with dog-
like devotion. His only dread was lest the scandal should reach
proportions that would compel him to take notice of it, and thus bring
shame and suffering upon the woman to whom he would have given his life.
That a man who saw her should love her seemed natural to him; that she
should have grown tired of himself, a thing not to be wondered at. He
was grateful