ed her to a seat, for I could not speak. Her agitation was
contagious, and I waited in silent trepidation to learn the mystery of
her emotion.

"'Forgave me this intrusion,' said she, in hesitating accents; 'you look
so young, so innocent, so lovely, my heart misgives me. I cannot, I dare
not.'

"She spoke in French, a language of which I was mistress, and I
recognized at once the land of her birth. She paused, as if unable to
proceed, while I sat, pale and cold as marble, wondering what awful
revelation she would, but dared not make. Had she come to tell me of my
husband's death,--was my first agonized thought, and I faintly
articulated,--

"'My husband!'

"'_Your_ husband! Poor, deluded young creature. Alas! alas! I can
forgive him for deserting me, but not for deceiving and destroying you.'

"I started to my feet with a galvanic spring. My veins tingled as if
fire were running through them, and my hair rose, startling with
electric horror. I grasped her arm with a force she might have felt
through covering steel, and looking her steadfastly in the face,
exclaimed,--

"'He _is_ my husband; mine in the face of God and man. He is _my_
husband, and the father of my child. I will proclaim it in the face of
earth and heaven. I will proclaim it till my dying day. How dare you
come to me with slanders so vile, false, unprincipled woman?'

"She recoiled a few steps from me, and held up her deprecating hands.

"'Have pity upon me, for I am very wretched,' she cried; 'were it not
for my child I would die in silence and despair, rather than rouse you
from your fatal dream, but I cannot see him robbed of his rights. I
cannot see another usurping the name and place he was born to fill.
Madam,' continued she, discarding her supplicating tone, and speaking
with dignity and force, 'I am no false, unprincipled woman, inventing
tales which I cannot corroborate. I am a wife, as pure in heart, as
upright in purpose as you can be,--a mother as tender. Forsaken by him
whom in spite of my wrongs I still too fondly love, I have left my
native land, crossed the ocean's breadth, come a stranger to a strange
country, that I might appeal to you for redress, and tell you that if
you still persist in calling him your own, it will be in defiance of the
laws of man and the canons of the living God.'

"As she thus went on, her passions became roused, and flashed and
darkened in her face with alternations so quick they mocked the sight.
Sh