"I was sure she would, although she despises me," cried Mr. Desmond. "I admit that I behaved despicably to her. I tried to get up a flirtation with her, but she scorned me with the pride of a queen, and the affair went no further. I believed her as pure and cold as the snow. No one was more amazed than myself when I learned the truth through my wife's causeless jealousy."
"You say 'causeless jealousy,' Desmond," Mr. Leith remonstrated, gravely, "but you forget that ever since your marriage you have persistently wounded your loving and sensitive wife by the most open and flagrant flirtations, thus giving her the greatest cause to doubt your fidelity."
Mr. Desmond looked thoroughly ashamed and penitent at the perfectly truthful charge.
"You speak the truth, I have behaved shamefully," he replied. "But I have had my lesson now. I never knew how much I loved and honored my sweet and beautiful wife until in her righteous wrath she deserted me. But if she will believe me this time and return to me, I will never offend her again by my foolish propensities. I will never even look at another woman. I am quite cured of flirting."
He spoke so soberly and earnestly that Mr. Leith was fain to believe him, but he answered gravely:
"Your wife is so thoroughly incensed against you, that she will never believe even your sworn word without additional proof."
"But how can I prove it to her?" cried the anxious husband. "She would not believe Mary Smith's denial, and she refuses to credit mine."
"There is only one way out of the trouble," the lawyer said, gravely.
"And that?" Mr. Desmond asked, anxiously.
"Is to find out the man who is really in fault, and obtain his sworn statement," Richard Leith replied.