"What need?" I answer wearily. "Of course it is the old story. I seem to have heard it a hundred times. You were a boy, she was a designing woman; she entrapped you: it is the whole thing." "I was no boy; I was an over-honorable man. She was an Italian woman, with some little learning, of rather respectable parentage, and who (a wonderful thing among her class) could speak a good deal of English. She was handsome, and for the time I fancied I loved her. No thought of evil towards her entered my heart; I asked her to marry me and the ceremony was performed, privately but surely, in the little chapel near her home, her brother being the principal witness. Hardly a month had passed before I fully understood the horrible mistake I had made--before I learned how detestable was the woman with whom I had linked my fate. Her coarse, harsh manner, her vile, insolent tongue, her habits of drunkenness, nay, more, her evident preference for a low, illiterate cousin, were all too apparent. I left her, she declaring herself as glad to see the last of me as I was to be rid of her. Does the whole thing disgust you, Phyllis?" He pauses, and draws his hand wearily across his forehead. I shake my head, but make no further reply; and presently he goes on again in a low tone: "I was, comparatively speaking, poor then; yet, out of the allowance my uncle had made me, I sent her regularly as much, indeed, more, than I could afford; but dread of discovery forced me to be generous. Then one day came the tidings of her death. Even now, Phyllis--now, when I am utterly crushed and heart-broken--I can feel again the wild passion of delight that overcame me as I pictured myself once more free. Again I mixed with the world I had for some time avoided, and was received with open arms, my uncle's death having made me a rich man; and then--then I met you. Oh, Phyllis, surely my story in a sad one, and deserving of some pity." "It is sad," I say, monotonously, "but not so sad as mine." Coming over, he kneels down beside my sofa, and gently, almost fearfully, he takes one of my hands in both his. "Oh not so sad as yours, my poor love, my own darling," he murmurs painfully, "but still unhappy enough. To think that I, who would willingly have shielded you with my life, should be the one to bring misery upon you I." He hides his face upon the far edge of the cushion on which my aching head is reclining. I can no longer see him, but can feel his whole frame trembling with suppressed emotion. With some far-off, indistinct sensation of pity, I press the hand that still holds mine. Presently I rouse myself, and, rising to a sitting posture, I fix my dull eyes upon the opposite wall, and speak. "I suppose it is to my old home I must go." As though the words stung him, Marmaduke gets up impetuously, and walks back to his former position upon the hearthrug. I noticed that his face has grown, if possible, a shade paler than before. A sudden look of fear has over-read it.