y, madam, respects _that!_"

Lady Jane examined the paper. It was a marriage-certificate. She turned
deadly pale, and beckoned to Mr. Vanborough. "Are you deceiving me?" she
asked.

Mr. Vanborough looked back into the far corner of the room, in which the
lawyer sat, impenetrably waiting for events. "Oblige me by coming here
for a moment," he said.

Mr. Delamayn rose and complied with the request. Mr. Vanborough
addressed himself to Lady Jane.

"I beg to refer you to my man of business. _He_ is not interested in
deceiving you."

"Am I required simply to speak to the fact?" asked Mr. Delamayn. "I
decline to do more."

"You are not wanted to do more."

Listening intently to that interchange of question and answer, Mrs.
Vanborough advanced a step in silence. The high courage that had
sustained her against outrage which had openly declared itself shrank
under the sense of something coming which she had not foreseen. A
nameless dread throbbed at her heart and crept among the roots of her
hair.

Lady Jane handed the certificate to the lawyer.

"In two words, Sir," she said, impatiently, "what is this?"

"In two words, madam," answered Mr. Delamayn; "waste paper."

"He is _not_ married?"

"He is _not_ married."

After a moment's hesitation Lady Jane looked round at Mrs. Vanborough,
standing silent at her side--looked, and started back in terror. "Take
me away!" she cried, shrinking from the ghastly face that confronted her
with the fixed stare of agony in the great, glittering eyes. "Take me
away! That woman will murder me!"

Mr. Vanborough gave her his arm and led her to the door. There was dead
silence in the room as he did it. Step by step the wife's eyes followed
them with the same dreadful stare, till the door closed and shut them
out. The lawyer, left alone with the disowned and deserted woman, put
the useless certificate silently on the table. She looked from him to
the paper, and dropped, without a cry to warn him, without an effort to
save herself, senseless at his feet.

He lifted her from the floor and placed her on the sofa, and waited
to see if Mr. Vanborough would come back. Looking at the beautiful
face--still beautiful, even in the swoon--he owned it was hard on her.
Yes! in his own impenetrable way, the rising lawyer owned it was hard on
her.

But the law justified it. There was no doubt in this case. The law
justified it.

The trampling of horses and the grating of wheels sounded outsid