Dimly she began to see that the pursuit of happiness could not be the true purpose of life, though all the world assumed that it was. Her dream of conjugal companionship had vanished altogether. There were times when she hated her husband, times when she pitied him, times when she despised him, and times when she tried to believe that she loved him,--must love him or die. Had any soul in the universe so yearned for love as she and been from birth so stinted of it? Behind the immobile mask that hid her proud, suffering heart from other eyes, her soul cried for it. What could not she have endured, with a laugh on her face and a song on her lips, had love walked by her side? Could poverty or any other terror which civilization has nursed daunt her then? No, a thousand times no, she said. Her own troubles diminished, however, in the presence of the heavier ones under which Chrissalyn now staggered. Colonel Layton was going down hill distressingly fast, and nothing could be done to save him. His health was broken, his wits muddled and wandering most of the time, and the end of his resources at hand. He had let go his anchorage and was drifting to his destruction, careless of wind or tide. Meantime the brave Butterfly smiled before the world and chatted cheerily when her friends called, though with her heart in her mouth, and her ear ever alert for her husband’s wavering footsteps. When she heard the unwelcome sound, she made excuse and went outside to intercept his entrance. Usually at such times he was pathetically obedient, and sat where she placed him, in some vacant room or dark corner of the hall, till her visitors left and she came for him. To be sure he complained and whined and swore in a rambling way without rage, yet when Chrissalyn came he went with her like a worn out child. However, he was not always so tractable. There were times when he blustered and threatened, and his eyes had a light dancing in them that made one’s blood run cold. One night Mrs. Doring could not sleep, a sense of impending danger oppressed her. Getting up and putting on a wrapper, she went to a window and looked into the street. All was still, and yet somewhere she fancied she heard mutterings. On going into the hall she saw the Laytons’ door open, the lights at full flare, and, to her surprise, the colonel, fully dressed, sitting in the doorway whetting a razor, with a slow, sibilant stroke, which seemed to give him extraordinary pleasure, for he smiled in a gratified way and his eyes twinkled like stars. There was no fury in his face, but something far more dreadful--the look of a lunatic who meditates a deed he considers delightful. Sitting by the window, opposite the door, was Chrissalyn, clad only in her sleeping gown, with a face white and rigid, and a pistol held firmly in her hand.