Notwithstanding her agitation, Mrs. Mainwaring had been quiet and self-restrained up to this moment. The intensity of her passion now seemed to transform her. She flung aside her travelling hat and jacket. She was desperate, and despair gave to her sudden beauty. In all my experience of the sad things of life, I seldom saw more terrible pathos than that which now shone out of the eyes and trembled round the lips of this poor young woman. She was so absorbed in trying to get her husband to recognise her that she forgot my presence and that of the amazed chambermaid who, devoured with curiosity, lingered near. "Edward," she said again, going up to her husband, "it is impossible that you can have forgotten me. I am your wife. I have been your wife for six years." "Good Lord, madam!" he exclaimed, bursting into a terrible laugh. "If you were my wife six years ago, I must have married you when I was a boy. I had not left school six years ago. I am only twenty-three at the present moment. Do you mean to maintain that I married you when I was a lad of seventeen?" "Edward, dear Edward, don't you know me?" she kept on pleading. Tears streamed down her cheeks. She dropped suddenly on her knees, and taking one of her husband's hands tried to raise it to her lips. Her manner, her words, her attitude, pathetic to us who stood by as witnesses, had a most irritating effect upon Mainwaring. "Get up" he said. "This is all a plant. But however long you choose to carry this game on, you won't get anything out of me. I must ask you, madam, to leave my room immediately. I do not even know your name. I never saw you before. Will you, sir," he added, turning fiercely to me, "have the goodness to remove this lady immediately from my bedroom?" Mrs. Mainwaring staggered to her feet. The cold sarcasm of the words of denial stung her to the quick. She approached the door, but before she could reach it she turned faint and would have fallen had I not caught her and placed her in a chair. "This is all some diabolical scheme to ruin a respectable man," said Mainwaring. "Will you favour me with your name, sir?" he added, turning to me. "Halifax," I answered. "I am a doctor. I attended you as a consulting physician in your late severe illness." "Heavens, what next?" he exclaimed. "I never had a day of serious illness in my life." "I think, Mrs. Mainwaring, we had better leave him for the present," I said. "I will speak to the manager----" Before I could add another word Mainwaring interrupted me hotly.