's wife, how could bridges be built, taxes collected,
fortifications planned? Surely a Frenchman must sometimes think, if only
by accident, of something other than his neighbor's wife? Macleod
laughed to himself in the solitude of Castle Dare, and contemptuously
flung the unfinished paper-covered novel aside.

But what was his surprise and indignation--his shame, even--on finding
that this very piece in which Gertrude White was acting was all about a
jealous husband, and a gay and thoughtless wife, and a villain who did
not at all silently plot her ruin, but frankly confided his aspirations
to a mutual friend, and rather sought for sympathy; while she, Gertrude
White herself, had, before all these people, to listen to advances
which, in her innocence, she was not supposed to understand. As the play
proceeded, his brows grew darker and darker. And the husband, who ought
to have been the guardian of his wife's honor? Well, the husband in
this rather poor play was a creation that is common in modern English
drama. He represented one idea at least that the English playwright has
certainly not borrowed from the French stage. Moral worth is best
indicated by a sullen demeanor. The man who has a pleasant manner is
dangerous and a profligate; the virtuous man--the true-hearted
Englishman--conducts himself as a boor, and proves the goodness of his
nature by his silence and his sulks. The hero of this trumpery piece was
of this familiar type. He saw the gay fascinator coming about his house;
but he was too proud and dignified to interfere. He knew of his young
wife becoming the byword of his friends; but he only clasped his hands
on his forehead, and sought solitude, and scowled as a man of virtue
should. Macleod had paid but little attention to stories of this kind
when he had merely read them; but when the situation was visible--when
actual people were before him--the whole thing looked more real, and his
sympathies became active enough. How was it possible, he thought, for
this poor dolt to fume and mutter, and let his innocent wife go her own
way alone and unprotected, when there was a door in the room, and a
window by way of alternative? There was one scene in which the faithless
friend and the young wife were together in her drawing-room. He drew
nearer to her; he spake softly to her; he ventured to take her hand. And
while he was looking up appealingly to her, Macleod was regarding his
face. He was calculating to himself th