and had at one
blow 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 tab