she resumed,
after a pause, "my husband's name is Hurlstone."

"But there was no Hurlstone on the passenger list either," said Brimmer.
"I knew them all, and their friends."

"Not in the list from the States; but if he came on board at Callao, you
wouldn't have known it. I knew that he arrived there on the Osprey a few
days before the Excelsior sailed."

Mr. Brimmer's eyes changed their expression.

"And you want to find him?"

"No," she said, with an actress's gesture. "I want to know the truth. I
want to know if I am still tied to this man, or if I am free to
follow the dictates of my own conscience,--to make my life anew,--to
become--you see I am not ashamed to say it--to become the honest wife of
some honest man."

"A divorce would suit your purpose equally," said Brimmer coldly. "It
can be easily obtained."

"A divorce! Do you know what that means to a woman in my profession? It
is a badge of shame,--a certificate of disgrace,--an advertisement to
every miserable wretch who follows me with his advances that I have no
longer the sanctity of girlhood, nor the protection of a wife."

There was tragic emotion in her voice, there were tears in her eyes. Mr.
Brimmer, gazing at her with what he firmly thought to be absolute and
incisive penetration, did not believe either. But like most practical
analysts of the half-motived sex, he was only half right. The emotion
and the tears were as real as anything else in the woman under
criticism, notwithstanding that they were not as real as they would have
been in the man who criticised. He, however, did her full justice on
a point where most men and all women misjudged her: he believed that,
through instinct and calculation, she had been materially faithful
to her husband; that this large goddess-like physique had all the
impeccability of a goddess; that the hysterical dissipation in which
she indulged herself was purely mental, and usurped and preoccupied all
other emotions. In this public exposition of her beauty there was no
sense of shame, for there was no sense of the passion it evoked. And
he was right. But there he should have stopped. Unfortunately, his
masculine logic forced him to supply a reason for her coldness in the
existence of some more absorbing passion. He believed her ambitious and
calculating: she was neither. He believed she might have made him an
admirable copartner and practical helpmeet: he was wrong.

"You know my secret now," she continued. "