But how he had suffered after that because of that thought! Things had seemed to go black before him. Beryl unfaithful? Beryl running around with a man like that, even if he was a great violinist? Everybody knew what kind of a man he was—all those men. The papers were always saying how crazy women were over him, and yet that he should come all the way to C—— to make trouble between him and Beryl! (If only he could prove that!) But why should she, with himself and Tickles to look after, and a life of her own which was all right—why should she be wanting to run around with a man like that, a man who would use her for a little while and then drop her. And when she had a home of her own? And her baby? And her mother and sister right here in C——? And him? And working as hard as he was and trying to make things come out right for them? That was the worst of it. That was the misery of it. And all for a little notice from a man who was so far above her or thought he was, anyhow, that he couldn’t care for her or any one long. The papers had said so at the time. But that was the whole secret. She was so crazy about people who did anything in music or painting or anything like that, that she couldn’t reason right about them. And she might have done a thing like that on that account. Personally he wouldn’t give a snap of his finger for the whole outfit. They weren’t ordinary, decent people anyhow. But making herself as common as that! And right here in C——, too, where they were both known. Oh, if only he had been able to prove that! If only he had been able to at that time! When he had recovered himself a little that morning after he had found the traces of the letters in the ashes he had wanted to go into the bedroom where she was still asleep and drag her out by the hair and beat her and make her confess to these things. Yes, he had. There had been all but murder in his heart that morning. He would show her. She couldn’t get away with any such raw stuff as that even if she did have her mother and sister to help her. (That sly little Alice, always putting her sister up to something and never liking him from the first, anyhow.) But then the thought had come to him that after all he might be wrong. Supposing the letters weren’t from Raskoffsky? And supposing she had told the truth when she said she hadn’t been in the car? He had nothing to go on except what he imagined, and up to then everything had been as wonderful as could be between them. Still....