Salome began to feel a trifle uncomfortable; for she knew that it would be a terrible shock to them when they should learn that Dr. Winthrop had rescued her from the prison to which they had doomed her, and brought her to Rome. Badly as they had treated her, wicked and hardened as they were, she could not help pitying them for the despair which she knew must overwhelm them when they should learn the truth. “Girl, why don’t you answer?” angrily demanded Mrs. Rochester, as she hesitated to reply; “who brought you to Rome?” “Her husband, madam,” said a stern, yet familiar voice behind them, and both women, turning at the sound, saw Dr. Winthrop just entering the room. They could not have been whiter or more motionless if they had been statues hewn from marble, as they for a moment gazed with horror upon him, and realized at last the blasting truth. Dr. Winthrop went forward to his wife’s side and drew her hand within his arm, with an air which betrayed how fondly devoted he was to her. “I need not tell you,” he continued in the same tone, “that everything has been discovered—all your treachery—all your plotting and crime. I found my wife while visiting Dr. Arnot’s lunatic asylum in the pursuit of information regarding diseases of the brain. Madam, do you know the penalty for such a crime as yours?” the young physician demanded, in a voice which seemed to freeze the blood in her veins. Oh, why had she never thought of such a contingency as this? She might have known that Dr. Winthrop would be going about to visit the various hospitals—why had she not authorized Dr. Arnot to keep Salome confined in a room by herself, and allow no one to see her? Such thoughts flitted through her brain and drove her nearly to despair; but she was not one to be easily cowed, and she soon rallied her scattered wits, and resolved to put a bold front on the matter. “But Salome is my daughter. I have committed no crime. As her guardian, I had a perfect right to put her where I chose,” she spiritedly retorted. “Do you imagine that such an argument would be entertained for one moment by a jury, madam? You know very well that it would not, if I proclaimed Salome as my wife, and revealed why you had been guilty of such a crime.” Mrs. Rochester sank back again, appalled by the mention of a jury, but his words had angered her daughter beyond endurance. She realized that she had lost everything in the game that she had been playing, while Salome had won. The knowledge of her rival’s triumph and of her own defeat made her both desperate and reckless. “Your wife!” she sneered. “Perhaps you may yet find yourself mistaken in that assertion; you may yet regret that you ever brought the girl here to-night to introduce her as Mrs. Winthrop when Rome shall ring with a bit of scandal which shall make your ears tingle.”