“I was going to observe, if you had not interrupted me, that no one was wanting in proper respect towards me,” replied the lady, who grew more cool as her husband increased in choler.  “Pray, Mr Sullivan, may I inquire who is the author of this slander?”

“The author, madam! look at me—­to your confusion look at me!”

“Well, I’m looking.”

“’Twas, madam—­the colonel himself.”

“The colonel himself!”

“Yes, madam, the colonel himself, who called this morning to see you and renew the intimacy, I presume; but by mistake was shown up to me, and then made an apology for his conduct.”

“It’s excessively strange! first the colonel is rude, without my knowledge, and then apologises to you!  Mr Sullivan, I’m afraid that your head is not right this morning.”

“Indeed, madam, I only wish that your heart was as sound,” replied the husband, with a sneer; “but, madam, I am not quite blind.  An honest woman—­a virtuous woman, Mrs Sullivan, would have immediately acquainted her husband with what had passed—­not have concealed it; still less have had the effrontery to deny it, when acknowledged by her paramour.”

“Paramour!” cried the lady, with an hysterical laugh; “Mr Sullivan, when I select a paramour, it shall be a handsome young man—­not an old, yellow-faced—­”

“Pshaw, madam! there’s no accounting for taste; when a woman deviates from the right path—­”

“Right path! if ever I deviated from the right path, as you call it, it was when I married such a wretch as you!  Yes, sir,” continued the lady, bursting into tears, “I tell it you now—­my life has been a torment to me ever since I married (sobbing)—­always suspected for nothing (sob, sob)—­jealous, detestable temper (sob)—­go to my friends (sob)—­hereafter may repent (sob)—­then know what you’ve lost” (sob, sob, sob).

“And, madam,” replied Mr Sullivan, “so may you also know what you have lost, before a few hours have passed away; then, madam, the time may come when the veil of folly will be rent from your eyes, and your conduct appear in all its deformity.  Farewell, madam—­perhaps for ever!”

The lady made no reply; Mr Sullivan quitted the room, and, repairing to his counting-house, wrote a challenge to the colonel and confided the delivery of it to one of his friends, who unwillingly accepted the office of second.

Chapter XXXV

  “He’s truly valiant, that can wisely suffer
  The worst that man can breathe, and make his wrongs
  His outsides:  to wear them, like his raiment, carelessly,
  And ne’er prefer his injuries to his heart,
  To bring it into danger.”

       SHAKESPEARE.