"I remember nothing to your discredit. Certainly what you have told me now is not to your discredit."

"If you had met my aunt in London, of course you would have known. But she does not visit or entertain anyone. You knew she was in London?"

"Yes."

"But you never saw her?"

"Yes, once."

"Oh, I did not know that. When?"

"A long time ago. It was quite a casual and unimportant meeting. Oh, Mr.

Walcott, who is that terrible woman?"

They were out of the building by this time, standing on the pavement.

Graham had called a cab, and whilst they were waiting for it to draw up Lettice had become aware of a strikingly-dressed woman, with painted face and bold eyes, who was planting herself in front of them, and staring at her with a mocking laugh.

Alan was horrified to see that it was his wife who stood before them, with the mad demoniac look in her eyes which he knew too well.

"Alan, my dear Alan," she cried in a shrill voice, causing everyone to look round at the group, "tell her this terrible woman's name! Tell her that I am your wife, the wife that you have plunged into misery and starvation----"

"For heaven's sake!" said Alan, turning to Graham, "where is your cab?

Take them away quickly!"

"Tell her," the virago screamed, "that I am the woman whom you tried to murder, in order that you might be free----"

Here the harangue was cut short by a policeman, who knew the orator very well by sight, and who deftly interposed his arm at the moment when Cora was reaching the climax of her rage. At the same instant the cab drew up, and Lettice was driven away with her friends, not, however, before she had forced Alan to take her hand, and had wished him good-night.

"That must have been his wife," said Clara, whose face was white, and who was trembling violently.

"Yes, confound her!" said her husband, much annoyed by what had happened.

"Could you not stay to see what happens? You might be of some use to Mr.

Walcott."

"What good can I do? I wish we had not met him. I have a horror of these scenes; some people, apparently, take them more coolly."

He was out of temper with Lettice, first for sitting by Alan at the conversazione, and then for ostentatiously shaking hands with him on the pavement. Her instinct told her what he was thinking.

"I am sorry it happened," she said; "but when a man is unfortunate one need not take the opportunity of punishing him. It was far worse for him than for us."

"I don't see that," said Graham. "And everyone has to bear his own troubles. Besides, why should a man with such a frightful infliction attach himself to ladies in a public place, and subject them to insult, without so much as warning them what they might expect to meet with?"

"Were you unwarned?"

"I was not thinking of myself. You were not warned."

"I beg your pardon, I was."

"You knew his wife was alive--and--what she is?"

"Yes."

"I must say I cannot understand it."

"You would not have me kind to a man who, as you say, is frightfully afflicted? It was for that very reason I thought we ought to be kind to him to-night."

"My sense of duty does not lead me quite so far; and I do not wish that Clara's should, either!"

"I am sorry," said Lettice, again.

Then there was silence in the cab; but the undutiful Clara was squeezing her friend's hand in the dark, whilst her lord and master fumed for five minutes in his corner. After that, he pulled the check-string.

"What are you going to do?" said Clara.

"Going back again," he said. "You women understand some things better than we do. All the same, I don't know what would happen if you always let your hearts lead you, and if you had no men to look after you. I shall take a hansom and follow on."

He was too late, however, to do any good. The stream of life had swept over the place where Alan and his wife had met, as it sweeps over all the great city's joys and sorrows, glories and disgrace, leaving not a vestige behind.

CHAPTER XVI.

CONCEIVED IN SORROW.

Two days later, as Lettice was hard at work in her study on a romance which she had begun in June, at the suggestion of a friendly publisher, she was interrupted by a knock at the door. It was a feeble knock, as of one who was half afraid, and the voice, which she heard inquiring for her immediately afterwards was a feeble voice, which she did not recognize.

Nor did she at first remember the face of Mrs. Bundlecombe, when that lady was brought into her room, so much had she changed since her last visit to Maple Cottage. She looked ten years older than when she transferred to her pocket the twenty pounds which Lettice had paid her, though that was barely twelve months ago.

Lettice was better pleased to see her this time; but there was a sinking at her heart as she thought from whom the old lady had come, and wondered what her coming might mean.

Mrs. Bundlecombe produced from her bag a little roll of paper, and laid it on the table with trembling hands.

"There, Miss Campion," she said, taking the chair which Lettice had put for her, "now I feel better already, and I can answer your kind inquiries. I cannot say that I am very well, but there is nothing you can do for me, except take the money back that I came and asked you for a year ago. Don't say anything against it, my dear, for my Alan says it must be done, and there is no use in trying to turn him. It is the right method for peace of conscience, as the good Mr. Baxter said, and that must be my apology, though I am sure you will not think it was nothing but sinful self-seeking that made me come to you before."

"I don't understand, Mrs. Bundlecombe! I simply paid you a debt, did I not? If it was right for my father to pay (as he would have done if he had lived), it was right for me to pay; and as it was right for me to pay, it was right for you to ask. And it gave me pleasure, as I told you at the time, so that I object to taking the money back again."

"That is what I said to Alan, but he would not listen to me. 'Miss Campion was not bound to pay her father's debt,' he said, 'any more than Mr. Campion, and therefore it was wrong for you to ask either of them.

But to go to a woman,' he said, 'was more than wrong, it was mean; and I can never look in her face again if you do not take it back and beg her pardon.' He can be very stern, my dear, when he is not pleased, and just now I could not disobey him if he was to tell me to go on my knees through London town."

"How did he know that I had paid you?"

"Well, it was yesterday; we had been in great trouble"--and here Mrs.

Bundlecombe broke down, having been very near doing it from the moment when she entered the room. Lettice comforted her as well as she could, and made her drink a gla.s.s of wine; and so she gradually recovered her voice.

"Well, as I was saying, my dear, in the evening, when we were quiet by ourselves, he said to me, 'Aunt Bessy, I met Miss Campion last night, and I gather from what she told me that you had seen one another in London. You never mentioned that to me. When was it?' I did not want to make a clean breast of it, but he has such a way of cross-questioning one that I could not keep it back; and that is how it all came out. So you must put up with it, for my sake. I dare not touch the money again, was it ever so."