"Ha!" exclaimed he, "has it come to that? That alters the case completely. I will take myself off, then! I will get out of your way! Had I suspected the existence of one drop of real affection in your heart towards the man you are about to marry, I would have cut off this right hand of mine rather than come here to-night. In coming I was sustained by the belief that I would not defraud my friend--not in reality--not of any thing he could value; not of a wife, but of an empty casket. This belief, on my part, is all that redeems my coming from being an act of diabolism. And now it turns out that there is a very good reason why the bridal cake cannot be thrown to the dogs, and the bridal robes cannot be committed to the flames, and the bridal guests cannot upon any account be robbed of their bride upon the morrow--_you could be happy with him if it were not for me!_" Bitter in tone was this repetition of her words--words which wounded him so keenly. They were calculated to wound the tender sensibilities of any lover, most of all a lover of Jerome Devonhough's stamp. He could condone any weakness on her part, except that which touched his own dominion over her--the sceptre of his love, the yoke of his power. Under a pacific exterior, there seethed in Jerome, volcanic masses of self-will and unchangeable purpose; hemmed in, held in bounds, seldom breaking forth in violent eruption, but always there. He was totally unprepared for any change in the feelings of the woman upon whom he had lavished the arbitrary tenderness of his own strong nature. Jerome, you perceive, is no more of a hero than Mell is a heroine. He is the counterpart of the man who lives round the corner, who sits next you in church, whom you meet not unfrequently at your friend's house at dinner. This man loves his wife, not because she is an artistic production, elaborately wrought out in broad, mellow, triumphant lines, grand in character, but rather because he recognizes good material in her for his own moulding. We must never approach the contemplation of any man's requirements in a wife with our minds full of loose generalities. There is so much of the fool in every man, the wisest man, who falls in love. He falls in love, not so much with what is ideally lovable in a woman, but what is practically complemental to his own nature. Jerome, being strong, loved Mell, who was weak, and weak in those very places where Jerome was strong. She needed him. He felt that he was a necessary adjunct to her perfect development in the sphere of womanhood; he felt that she was necessary to him in the enlargement of his manhood. For, does not a man of his type need some one to guide, to govern, to lord it over, and to get all the nonsense out of? But he would love her, too, notwithstanding all this, with that sheltering devotion which a woman needs--all women, with one exception. A strong woman in her strength is not dependent upon any man's love.