Suddenly she burst into a fit of passionate weeping, drew her chair close to his and laid her hand upon his arm. “Oh, please befriend me,” she wailed. “The others will give me advice that will suit themselves. Be my friend. Tell me what to do.” And at this moment, the most compromising one in their interview, the door opened, and Edwards walked into the room. Not the smiling, genial man he had known up to the present, but another person altogether, his eyes glaring, his face contorted with fury. He thundered at the weeping woman to go to her room and leave him alone to deal with her lover. He turned to the discomfited young nobleman and spoke with an angry snarl in his voice when she had obeyed his order. “And what have you to say, my lord, in explanation of this vile outrage upon an unsuspecting man?” Wraysbury made the best defence he could, a perfectly truthful one. He had come there in answer to a note from his wife, asking him to call upon her in reference to a subject on which she wanted advice. Edwards listened in stony silence. His fury had died down, but his voice had an inflection of cutting sarcasm when he replied: “Do you believe such a story would take in a child? You must think me a simpleton to credit it. I had not intended to return for another week, but the sudden illness of a friend caused me to change my plans,” he said. “I came home, as I imagined, to the society of a faithful wife. After I had put my key into the door, I noticed an unnatural stillness in the house. I go down into the lower regions; there is not a servant left in the place--they have been got out of the way by some cunning means. I go up the stairs to the drawing-room. As I ascend I hear the sound of voices--presently that of a woman sobbing. I open the door and see her with her hand upon your arm. What conclusion am I to draw from that? You have stolen her in my absence, and the servants have been got out of the way. You can show me twenty letters; they are a part of the game to try and avert suspicion in the remote event of discovery.” Wraysbury was nonplussed. To any husband the situation might have borne the interpretation he put upon it. Edwards spoke again in a peremptory voice. “Leave this house, Lord Wraysbury, at once; your presence has polluted it too long. But don’t think for a moment that, because you occupy a high position in the world, and I am in your eyes a mere nobody, that you are going to go scot-free. Neither shall this worthless woman whom you have dazzled with your fine manners and your great fortune. Before long you will hear from my solicitors.” Wraysbury knew that argument was useless. He left Curzon Street feeling bitterly humiliated.