"Notwithstanding all that you have seen and heard," I said, "I am not guilty of the crime you accuse me of. Mrs. Hillmer is an old friend of mine, whom I have helped from a state of misery to one of comfort and comparative happiness. She is as pure-minded in thought, as spotless in character, as you are yourself. You are doing her a grievous injustice by doubting the relations between her and me. If you only knew her--" My wife laughed scornfully. "Pray spare yourself, Charles. I have never seen you so interested before, but you lie badly, nevertheless." "I do not lie. Before heaven I am telling you the truth." "You are even willing to perjure yourself, _Colonel Montgomery_?" My poor armor was ill-fitted for this stroke. I suppose I must have flinched before it, for she went on: "You see I am well posted. My detectives have done their work well. Oh, Heaven, that I should ever have learned to love a vile wretch like you. I thought you respected me, at least. I tried hard to bend my own wishes to sympathy with yours, and I dreamt even of ultimate success. I knew you didn't care much for me, but the devotion of a slave has at times been rewarded by the affection of her master. Fortunately, I am a slave by choice. It only required experience to break my bonds, and you have supplied the experience." For the first time in my life did it dawn on me that my self-contained and haughty wife harbored other thoughts than a sentiment of respect for an indulgent and easily controlled husband. It was a shock to me, a deeper humiliation than she dreamed of. How could I expiate the past, wipe out this record of error and folly, but not of ill-doing, and live happily with her so long as Providence was pleased to spare us? While these things ran through my brain she suddenly turned on me. "You fear exposure in the law courts! You dread your name figuring in a society scandal! How little you know me. You naturally compare me by your own contemptible standard. I left your house to-night determined never to return to it should I find you here, as in all probability, I was told, would be the case. I will go to my sister until I have determined upon my future life. You, at least, will never, by my desire, see or hear from me again. Thus far, I presume, I will fall in with your views." She would have passed me, but I held fast to the inside of the door. If once she got away from me I might never be able to set affairs even tolerably right. Better, I deemed, have one trying scene in the hope that she would calm down in the face of facts, than allow her to carry the quarrel to her relatives and strengthen her attitude by their natural support. "Alice," I said, "you shall not go." "How can you dare to detain me?" she shrieked, and the glint in her eyes showed how thoroughly her passions were aroused.