The husband and wife formed a group which would have been awful to look upon, had there been any one to witness that terrible interview, as they stood confronting one another, while Geoffrey spoke. As his words came slowly forth, a storm of passion shook Margaret's frame. Every gleam of colour forsook her face; she was transformed into a fixed image of unspeakable wrath. A moment she stood silent, breathing quickly, her white lips dry and parted. Then, as a faint movement, something like a ghastly smile, crept over her face, she said: "You are mistaken, Geoffrey Ludlow; I leave my life of infamy and shame in leaving _you!_" "In leaving me! Again you are mad!" "Again I speak the words of sanity and truth. If what I am going to tell you fills you with horror, I would have spared you; you have yourself to thank. I intended to have spared you this final blow,--I intended to have left you in happy ignorance of the fact--which you blindly urge me to declare by your taunts. What did I say at the commencement of this interview? That I wanted us to part friends. But you will not have that. You reproach me with ingratitude; you taunt me with being an unnatural mother; finally, you fling at me my life of infamy and shame; I repeat that no infamy, no shame could attach to me until I became--your mistress!" The bolt had shot home at last. Geoffrey leapt to his feet, and stood erect before her; but his strength must have failed him in that instant; for he could only gasp, "My mistress!" "Your mistress. That is all I have been to you, so help me Heaven!" "My wife! my own--married--lawful wife!" "No, Geoffrey Ludlow, no! In that wretched lodging to which you had me conveyed, and where you pleaded your love, I told you--the truth indeed, but not the whole truth. Had you known me better then,--had you known me as you--as you know me now, you might have guessed that I was not one of those trusting creatures who are betrayed and ruined by fair words and beaming glances, come they from ever so handsome a man. One fact I concealed from you, thinking, as my Lionel had deserted me, and would probably never be seen again, that its revelation would prevent me from accepting the position which you were about to offer me; but the day that I fled from my home at Tenby I was married to Lionel Brakespere; and at this moment I am his wife, not merely in the sight of God, but by the laws of man!" For some instants he did not speak, he did not move from the chair into which he had again fallen heavily during her speech: he sat gazing at her, his breathing thickened, impeded, gasping. At length he said: "You're--you're speaking truth?" "I am speaking gospel-truth, Geoffrey Ludlow. You brought it upon yourself: I would have saved you from the knowledge of it if I could, but you brought it upon yourself."