Lilian's purity as I have? Who is so fitted to know the exact truth of
every whisper against her? Yet when I, whom you admit to have some
reputation for shrewd intelligence,--I, who tracked her way,--I, who
restored her to her home,--when I, Allen Fenwick, am so assured of her
inviolable innocence in thought as in deed, that I trust my honour to her
keeping,--surely, surely, I confute the scandal which you yourself do not
believe, though you refuse to reject and to annul it?"

"Do not deceive yourself, Allen Fenwick," said she, still standing beside
me, her countenance now hard and stern. "Look where I stand, I am the
World! The World, not as satirists depreciate, or as optimists extol its
immutable properties, its all-persuasive authority. I am the World! And
my voice is the World's voice when it thus warns you. Should you make
this marriage, your dignity of character and position would be gone! If
you look only to lucre and professional success, possibly they may not
ultimately suffer. You have skill, which men need; their need may still
draw patients to your door and pour guineas into your purse. But you have
the pride, as well as the birth of a gentleman, and the wounds to that
pride will be hourly chafed and never healed. Your strong breast of man
has no shelter to the frail name of woman. The World, in its health, will
look down on your wife, though its sick may look up to you. This is not
all. The World, in its gentlest mood of indulgence, will say
compassionately, 'Poor man! how weak, and how deceived! What an
unfortunate marriage!' But the World is not often indulgent,--it looks
most to the motives most seen on the surface. And the World will more
frequently say, 'No; much too clever a man to be duped! Miss Ashleigh had
money. A good match to the man who liked gold better than honour.'"

I sprang to my feet, with difficulty suppressing my rage; and, remembering
it was a woman who spoke to me, "Farewell, madam," said I, through my