names," she continued, bitterly--"Mowbray and Dudleigh and Dunbar also,
no doubt. Why you should call yourself Dunbar I can't imagine. You seem
to me to be Mrs. Wiggins. Wiggins at least can not be an assumed name."

At these words, which were spoken on the spur of the moment, out of mere
hostility toward Mrs. Dunbar, and the desire to wound her, the latter
recoiled as though from some sudden blow, and looked at Edith with awful
eyes.

"You are terrible," she said, in a low voice--"you are terrible. You can
not imagine what horrors you give expression to."

To this Edith paid no attention. It sounded old. It was like what
Wiggins had frequently said to her.

"I can not imagine," she continued, "any human being so utterly
bad-hearted, so altogether vile and corrupt, as this man who now calls
himself Leon Dudleigh. In pure fiendish malignity, and in all those
qualities which are abhorrent and shameful, he surpasses even, that
arch-villain Wiggins himself."

"Stop, stop!" cried Mrs. Dunbar. "I can not bear this. You must not talk
so. How do you know! You know nothing about Leon. Oh, how you wrong him!
Leon has had bad associates, but he himself is not bad. After all, Leon
has naturally a noble heart. He was a brave, high-minded boy. Oh, if
you could but know what he once was. You wrong Leon. You wrong him most
deeply. Oh, how deeply you wrong him!"

Mrs. Dunbar had said all this in a kind of feverish agitation, speaking
quickly and vehemently. Never before had Edith seen any thing