The attack was so sudden and powerful that Henry Little was staggered and silenced; but an unexpected defender appeared on the scene; one of the folding-doors was torn open, and Grace darted in.

“How dare you say it is his fault, poor ill-used angel!  No, no, no, no, I am the only one to blame.  I didn’t love you as you deserved.  I tried to die for you, and failed. I tried to kill that monster for you, and failed. I am too weak and silly; I shall only make you more unhapppy.  Give me one kiss, my own darling, and then kill me out of the way.”  With this she was over his knees and round his neck in a moment, weeping, and clutching him with a passionate despair that melted all his anger away, and soon his own tears tell on her like rain.

“Ah, Grace!  Grace!” he sobbed, “how could you? how could you?”

“Don’t speak unkindly to her,” cried Jael, “or she won’t be alive a day.  She is worse off than you are; and so is he too.”

“You mock me; he is her husband.  He can make her live with him.  He can—­” Here he broke out cursing and blaspheming, and called Grace a viper, and half thrust her away from him with horror, and his face filled with jealous anguish:  he looked like a man dying of poison.

Then he rose to his feet, and said, with a sort of deadly calm, “Where can I find the man?”

“Not in this house, you may be sure,” said Jael; “nor in any house where she is.”

Henry sank into his seat again, and looked amazed.

“Tell him all,” said Grace.  “Don’t let him think I do not love him at all.”

“I will,” said Jael.  “Well, the wedding was at eleven; your letter came at half-past twelve, and I took it her.  Soon after that the villain came to her, and she stabbed him directly with this stiletto.  Look at it; there’s his blood up on it; I kept it to show you.  I caught her arm, or she would have killed him, I believe.  He lost so much blood, the doctor would not let him be moved.  Then she thought of you still, and would not pass a night under the same roof with him; at two o’clock she was on the way to Raby; but Mr. Coventry was too much of a man to stay in the house and drive her out; so he went off next morning, and, as soon as she heard that, she came home.  She is wife and no wife, as the saying is, and how it is all to end Heaven only knows.”

“It will end the moment I meet the man; and that won’t be long.”

“There! there!” cried Grace, “that is what I feared.  Ah, Jael!  Jael! why did you hold my hand?  They would not have hung me.  I told you so at the time:  I knew what I was about.”

“Jael,” said the young man, “of all the kind things you have done for me, that was the kindest.  You saved my poor girl from worse trouble than she is now in.  No, Grace; you shall not dirty your hand with such scum as that:  it is my business, and mine only.”