Christian Harefield’s wife confessed that she had never loved him, that she had sacrificed her own inclinations for the benefit of her family. She confessed further that she had loved Antonio Murano; but declared at the same time, with tears of mingled anger and shame, that no word had ever been spoken by either of them since her marriage which her husband could blame. ‘You have seen him. He has been your chosen companion and friend,’ cried Christian Harefield. ‘If you had meant to be true to me you would never have seen his face after your marriage. Had you been honest and loyal I would have forgiven you for not loving me. I will never forgive you for deceiving me.’ From that hour there was no longer even the semblance of love between them. On Mr. Harefield’s part there was an ill-concealed aversion which extended even to his child. Finally came that last Italian journey--necessitated by the wife’s fast failing health--and with that journey the end. They went this time not to Florence, Mrs. Harefield’s beloved home, but to Venice, where she was a stranger. From Venice they were to go to Rome for the winter, and it was while they were travelling towards Rome that the catastrophe came. Christian Harefield believed that his wife had left him with her cousin--that the whole thing had been deliberately planned between them, Captain Murano following them southward from Venice. This was the bitter past upon which Christian Harefield looked back as he sat before his solitary hearth that wintry night. The story of his wedded life passed before him like a series of pictures. He might have made it better, perhaps, if he had been wiser, he told himself; but he could not have made his wife love him, and he had loved her too passionately to be satisfied with less than her love. They were doomed to be miserable. It was long before he read the Reverend Mother’s statement. The clock had struck more than once. His servant had come in for the last time, bringing a fresh supply of wood. The doors had been locked and barred. The household had gone to bed. It was the dead of night before Mr. Harefield aroused himself from that long reverie, and opened the sealed paper which was to confirm Antonio Murano’s story. He read it slowly and thoughtfully, and believed it. What motive could any one have for deceiving him, now, after all these years, when the griefs and passions of the past were dead things--like a handful of gray dust in a funeral urn?