That was the time, as he had afterward told himself--how often!--that he should have discovered his mistake and stopped. Later it always seemed to become more and more impossible. Then, in spite of some heartache to her and some distress to himself, no doubt, all would be well for him now. But no; he had been too inexperienced, too ignorant, too bound by all the conventions and punctilio of his simple Western world. He thought an engagement, however unsatisfactory it might come to seem afterward, was an engagement, and binding. An honorable man would not break one--or so his country moralists argued. Yes, at that time he might have written her, he might have told her, then. But he had been too sensitive and kindly to speak of it. Afterward it was too late. He feared to wound her, to undo her, to undo her life. But now--now--look at his! He had gone back on several occasions before marriage, and might have seen and done and been free if he had had but courage and wisdom--but no; duty, order, the beliefs of the region in which he had been reared, and of America--what it expected and what she expected and was entitled to--had done for him completely. He had not spoken. Instead, he had gone on and married her without speaking of the change in himself, without letting her know how worse than ashes it had all become. God, what a fool he had been! how often since he had told himself over and over. Well, having made a mistake it was his duty perhaps, at least according to current beliefs, to stick by it and make the best of it;--a bargain was a bargain in marriage, if no where else--but still that had never prevented him from being unhappy. He could not prevent that himself. During all these long years, therefore, owing to these same conventions--what people would think and say--he had been compelled to live with her, to cherish her, to pretend to be happy with her--“another perfect union,” as he sometimes said to himself. In reality he had been unhappy, horribly so. Even her face wearied him at times, and her presence, her mannerisms. Only this other morning Doctor Storm, by his manner indicating that he thought him lonely, in danger of being left all alone and desperately sad and neglected in case she died had irritated him greatly. Who would take care of him? his eyes had seemed to say--and yet he himself wanted nothing so much as to be alone for a time, at least, in this life, to think for himself, to do for himself, to forget this long, dreary period in which he had pretended to be something that he was not. Was he never to be rid of the dull round of it, he asked himself now, never before he himself died? And yet shortly afterward he would reproach himself for these very thoughts, as being wrong, hard, unkind--thoughts that would certainly condemn him in the eyes of the general public, that public which made reputations and one’s general standing before the world.