tledge overhears the
Count de Carojac, a hardened roue and a duellist, speaking of Lilian in
such terms as no honorable man should speak of a modest woman.
Routledge, with a studio in Rome, and having been educated at a German
university, is familiar with the use of the rapier. A duel is arranged.
Lilian hears of it thru a female friend, and Strebelow, also, thru the
American second of Mr. Routledge. The parties meet at the Chateau
Chateaubriand, in the suburbs of Paris, at midnight, by the light of the
moon, in winter. A scream from Lilian, as she reaches the scene in
breathless haste, throws Routledge off his guard; he is wounded and
falls. Strebelow, too, has come on the field, not knowing the cause of
the quarrel; but anxious to prevent a meeting between two of his own
personal friends. Lilian is ignorant of her husband's presence, and she
sees only the bleeding form of the man she loves lying upon the snow.
She falls at his side, and words of burning passion, checked a few hours
before by the innocent presence of her child, spring to her lips. The
last of these words are as follows: "I have loved you--and you
only--Harold, from the first."

These words, clear, unmistakable, carrying their terrible truth straight
to his heart, come to John Strebelow as the very first intimation that
his wife did not love him when she married him. Crushed by this sudden
blow, an expression of agony on his face, he stands for a moment
speechless. When his voice returns, he has become another man. He is
hard and cold, still generous, so far as those things a generous man
cares least for are concerned. He will share all his wealth with her;
but, in the awful bitterness of a great heart, at that moment, he feels
that the woman who has deceived him so wickedly has no natural right to
be the guardian of their child. "Return to our home, madam; it will be
yours, not mine, hereafter; but our child will not be there." Ungenerous
words! But if we are looking in our own hearts, where we must find
nearly all the laws of dramatic construction, how many of us would be
more generous, with such words as John Strebelow had just heard ringing
in our ears? As the act closes, the startled love of a mother has again
and finally asserted itself in Lilian's heart, its one overmastering
passion of her nature. With the man she has loved lying near her,
wounded, and, for aught she knows, dying, she is thinking only of her
lost child. Maternal love, thruout th