All the blood seems to rush from Lauraine's heart to her face at this insult. She confronts him with a passion of indignation. "How _dare_ you?" she cries; and then something seems to rise in her throat and choke her. The utter futility of words--the sense of her own imprudence--confront her like a barrier to the belief she would invoke. He sees he has stung her now almost beyond endurance, and the knowledge rouses all that is worst in him, and prompts but further outrage. That his own wrong-doing is discovered, that another woman has fallen where she--his wife--stood firm, are but added incentives to his jealous fury and defeated ends. "How _dare_ I? You will find that I dare more than that, madam. I think you would not look much better than I if we had a 'show up,' and as I live, if you insult Lady Jean I will institute proceedings against you--with Keith Athelstone as co-respondent." And he leaves the room with a brutal laugh. Lauraine stands there as if turned to stone. For the first time she feels how powerless she is--how helpless is any woman when the man who has sworn to protect and honour her, turns round on her and insults her with the very weakness he is bound to respect. She knows her husband is not faithful, that the very presence of this woman beneath her roof is an outrage to all decency and morality, and yet if she opposes that presence, she herself is threatened with a life-long injury; nay, more, Keith will be dragged in to shield the sharer of this flagrant guilt, which is before her very eyes, and which she seems powerless to resent. She grows desperate as she thinks of it--as she looks at the case from every side, and yet sees no way of escape or justice. Of what use is innocence to a woman whose name is before the world, and dragged through the mire of public inquiry? A thousand tongues will chatter, a thousand scandals fly, to be magnified and retailed and charged with vile suspicions. She will be a public sport, a public shame. And Lauraine knew that this would be her portion if she did not agree to hide the guilt of another woman, and tacitly accept the charge laid against herself. As she thought of it, all that was best and purest in her nature rose in revolt. All the courage and strength that had given her power to resist her lover, seemed to array themselves against the brutal tyranny and shameful outrage she had been bidden to accept. "I will not do it; I _will_ not!" she cries aloud, as she paces to and fro her room. "After all I am rightly punished. I was false to him, and it was wrong to allow him to be so much with me, once I knew he loved me still. Now, whichever way I look at it, there seems nothing but shame and dishonour."