She accompanied the last words by a farewell look which aroused Mrs. Vanborough to frenzy.  She sprang forward and prevented Lady Jane from leaving the room.

“No!” she said.  “You don’t go yet!”

Mr. Vanborough came forward to interfere.  His wife eyed him with a terrible look, and turned from him with a terrible contempt.  “That man has lied!” she said.  “In justice to myself, I insist on proving it!” She struck a bell on a table near her.  The servant came in.  “Fetch my writing-desk out of the next room.”  She waited—­with her back turned on her husband, with her eyes fixed on Lady Jane.  Defenseless and alone she stood on the wreck of her married life, superior to the husband’s treachery, the lawyer’s indifference, and her rival’s contempt.  At that dreadful moment her beauty shone out again with a gleam of its old glory.  The grand woman, who in the old stage days had held thousands breathless over the mimic woes of the scene, stood there grander than ever, in her own woe, and held the three people who looked at her breathless till she spoke again.

The servant came in with the desk.  She took out a paper and handed it to Lady Jane.

“I was a singer on the stage,” she said, “when I was a single woman.  The slander to which such women are exposed doubted my marriage.  I provided myself with the paper in your hand.  It speaks for itself.  Even the highest society, madam, respects that!”

Lady Jane examined the paper.  It was a marriage-certificate.  She turned deadly pale, and beckoned to Mr. Vanborough.  “Are you deceiving me?” she asked.

Mr. Vanborough looked back into the far corner of the room, in which the lawyer sat, impenetrably waiting for events.  “Oblige me by coming here for a moment,” he said.

Mr. Delamayn rose and complied with the request.  Mr. Vanborough addressed himself to Lady Jane.

“I beg to refer you to my man of business. He is not interested in deceiving you.”

“Am I required simply to speak to the fact?” asked Mr. Delamayn.  “I decline to do more.”

“You are not wanted to do more.”

Listening intently to that interchange of question and answer, Mrs. Vanborough advanced a step in silence.  The high courage that had sustained her against outrage which had openly declared itself shrank under the sense of something coming which she had not foreseen.  A nameless dread throbbed at her heart and crept among the roots of her hair.

Lady Jane handed the certificate to the lawyer.

“In two words, Sir,” she said, impatiently, “what is this?”

“In two words, madam,” answered Mr. Delamayn; “waste paper.”

“He is not married?”

“He is not married.”

After a moment’s hesitation Lady Jane looked round at Mrs. Vanborough, standing silent at her side—­looked, and started back in terror.  “Take me away!” she cried, shrinking from the ghastly face that confronted her with the fixed stare of agony in the great, glittering eyes.  “Take me away!  That woman will murder me!”