“Edgar!” she said, with pleasure so sudden that she had not time to think whether it was right and becoming on the part of Mrs. Arden of Arden to express such a sentiment. But, before she had reached him, his pained and serious look, his want of all response to her warm exclamation, and the curious atmosphere of agitation in the room, impressed her in spite of herself. She stopped short, her tone changed, the revulsion of feeling which follows an overture repulsed, suddenly clouded over her face. “I see I am an intruder,” she said. “I did not mean to interfere with--business.” Then curiosity got the upper hand. She paused and looked at them--Edgar so determined and serious, her husband agitated, sullen--and as pale as if he had been dying. “But what business can there be between you two?” she asked, with a sharp tone of anxiety in her voice. The two men were like criminals before her. “What is it?--what is it?” she cried. “Something has happened. What brings you two together must concern me.” “Go home, Clare, go home,” said Arthur Arden, hoarsely. “We don’t want you here, to make things worse--go home.” She looked at Edgar--he shook his head and turned his eyes from her. He had given her no welcome, no look even of the old affection. Clare’s blood was up. “I have a right to know what has brought you together,” she said, drawing a chair to the table, and suddenly seating herself between them. “I will go home when you are ready to come with me, Arthur. What is it? for, whatever it is, I have a right to know.” Edgar came to her side and took her hand, which she gave to him almost reluctantly, averting her face. “Clare,” he said, almost in a whisper, “this is the only moment for all these years that I could not be happy to see you. Go home, for God’s sake, as he says----” “I will not,” said Clare. “Some new misfortune has occurred to bring you two together. Why should I go home, to be wretched, wondering what has happened? For my children’s sake, I will know what it is.” Neither of them made her any answer. There were several papers lying on the table between them--one a bulky packet, directed in what Clare knew to be his solicitor’s handwriting, to Arthur Arden. Miss Lockwood had played Edgar false, and, even while she urged him on, had already placed her papers in the lawyer’s hands. Arden had thus known the full dangers of the exposure before him, when, with some vague hopes of a compromise, he had met Edgar, whom he insisted on considering Miss Lockwood’s emissary. He had been bidding high for silence, for concealment, and had been compelled to stomach Edgar’s indignant refusal, which for the moment he dared not resent, when Clare thus burst upon the scene. They were suddenly arrested by her appearance, stopped in mid-career. “Is it any renewal of the past?--any new discovery? Edgar, you have found something out--you are, after all----” He shook his head.