e same thing as justice, ought to be in a felon's cell; a man
who could take money to betray his trust. Her anger at first swept away
all bounds. She was impatient for the moment when she should see
him again, and tear off his mask. For once she would express all the
loathing she felt for the whole pack of political hounds. She would see
whether the animal was made like other beings; whether he had a sense of
honour; a single clean spot in his mind.

Then it occurred to her that after all there might be a mistake; perhaps
Mr.

Ratcliffe could explain the charge away. But this thought only laid
bare another smarting wound in her pride. Not only did she believe the
charge, but she believed that Mr. Ratcliffe would defend his act. She
had been willing to marry a man whom she thought capable of such a
crime, and now she shuddered at the idea that this charge might have
been brought against her husband, and that she could not dismiss it with
instant incredulity, with indignant contempt. How had this happened? how
had she got into so foul a complication? When she left New York, she had
meant to be a mere spectator in Washington. Had it entered her head
that she could be drawn into any project of a second marriage, she
never would have come at all, for she was proud of her loyalty to her
husband's memory, and second marriages were her abhorrence. In her
restlessness and solitude, she had forgotten this; she had only asked
whether any life was worth living for a woman who had neither husband
nor children. Was the family all that life had to offer? could she find
no interest outside the household? And so, led by this will-of-the-wisp,
she had, with her eyes open, walked into the quagmire of politics, in
spite of remonstrance, in spite of conscience.

She rose and paced the room, while Sybil lay on the couch, watching her
with eyes half shut. She grew more and more angry with herself, and as
her self-reproach increased, her anger against Ratcliffe faded away. She
had no right to be angry with Ratcliffe. He had never deceived her.
He had always openly enough avowed that he knew no code of morals in
politics; that if virtue did not answer his purpose he used vice. How
could she blame him for acts which he had repeatedly defended in her
presence and with her tacit assent, on principles that warranted this or
any other villainy?

The worst was that this discovery had come on her as a blow, not as
a reprieve from execution. At thi