“Do not add hypocrisy to the wrong you have done me,” said Mrs. Tredethlyn. “I have been most cruelly awakened this day to a knowledge of the life you have been leading--ever since our marriage. I cannot speak of this subject; it is too horrible; I think the words would choke me. I thought that I should have been able to write what I had to tell you; but since I have been so unfortunate as to meet you, I may as well say with my own lips what I meant to have said in a letter. It is very little. I have only to tell you that from this moment we must be strangers to each other. After my discoveries of to-day, I should consider myself a base and degraded creature if I ever suffered your hand to touch mine in friendship again. The obligation of my father’s debt to you must rest upon him henceforward, and not upon me.” “But, Maude, explain yourself!--your discovery of to-day, you say! What discovery?” “Your affectation of unconsciousness is a deeper insult than your----No, I will _not_ discuss this subject with you!” cried Maude, passionately. “It is shameful--it is cruel--that I should have been wronged so basely, when I trusted you so completely. Do not speak to me; do not touch me!” she exclaimed, shrinking away from him with a shudder; “your presence inspires me with disgust and abhorrence. Why do you make any poor pretence of inhabiting this house, which has only afforded you an ostensible shelter, while your amusements and your friends have been found elsewhere? I set you free from this hour, Mr. Tredethlyn. Seek for happiness after your own fashion; where you please. I have nothing more to say to you.” She swept from the room before her husband could arrest her. Unspeakably bewildered by her passionate words, which were almost meaningless to him, Francis Tredethlyn stood motionless as a statue a few paces from the doorway by which his wife had just left him. He was standing thus when the voluminous curtains which were drawn across the archway between the drawing-rooms were cautiously divided, and a plump little figure in blue muslin appeared among the amber drapery. The Cornishman heard the rustling, and turned abruptly towards the _portière_.