"The _dénouement_, however, came with frightful rapidity. The Wings had taken an old house at the back of the downs for the summer, no doubt to escape from some of the notoriety they had gained in Brighton. There--to her final ruin--Juliet Sparling was induced to join them, and gambling began again; she still desperately hoping to replace the trust money, and salving her conscience, as to her sister, by drawing for the time on the sums lent her by Francis Wing.--Here at last Lady Wing's suspicion was aroused, and Mrs. Sparling found herself between the hatred of the wife and the dishonorable passion of the husband. Yet to leave them would be the signal for exposure. For some time the presence of other guests protected her. Then the guests left, and one August night after dinner, Francis Wing, who had drunk a great deal of champagne, made frantic love to her. She escaped from him with difficulty, in a passion of loathing and terror, and rushed in-doors, where she found Lady Wing in the gallery of the old house, on the first floor, walking up and down in a jealous fury. Juliet Sparling burst in upon her with the reproaches of a woman driven to bay, threatening to go at once to her husband and make a clean breast of the whole history of their miserable acquaintance. She was practically beside herself--already, as the sequel showed, mortally ill, worn out by remorse and sleeplessness, and quivering under the insult which had been offered her. Lady Wing recovered her own self-possession under the stimulus of Juliet's breakdown. She taunted her in the cruelest way, accused her of being the temptress in the case of Sir Francis, and of simulating a hypocritical indignation in order to save herself with her husband, and finally charged her with the robbery of her sister's money, declaring that as soon as daylight came she would take steps to set the criminal law in motion, and so protect both herself and her husband from any charge such a woman might bring against them. The threat, of course, was mere bluff. But Mrs. Sparling, in her frenzy and her ignorance, took it for truth. Finally, the fierce creature came up to her, snatching at a brooch in the bosom of her dress, and crying out in the vilest language that it was Sir Francis's gift. Juliet, pushed up against the panelling of the gallery, caught at a dagger belonging to a trophy of Eastern arms displayed on the wall, close to her hand, and struck wildly at her tormentor. The dagger pierced Lady Wing's left breast--she was in evening dress and _décolletée_; it penetrated to the heart, and she fell dead at Juliet's feet as her husband entered the gallery. Juliet dropped the dagger; and as Sir Francis rushed to his wife, she fled shrieking up the stairs--her white dress covered with blood--to her own room, falling unconscious before she reached it. She was carried to her room by the servants--the police were sent for--and the rest--or most of the rest--you know."