Mad? Would God it had been madness! This was a confession. His wife, Lady Gerardine, the consort of the Lieutenant-Governor, had had a low intrigue with an obscure Indian officer, a fellow of no standing, of no importance—Bethune! As Sir Arthur drew near her, silent through the very inadequacy of language, his eye fell upon the pale hand clasping the bedpost. There, upon the third finger, flashed the tiny gems of an unknown ring—a miserable, paltry thing. (Sir Arthur was a creature of detail, even at such a moment.) It was the last straw. He gripped her by the wrist, brutally. "Whose ring is that?" he sputtered. The physical pain of his clutch did her good—roused her, with a sense of relief, to face his onslaught. She was glad that he should be angry, that his countenance should be distorted and ugly. In such a mood as this she could meet him and feel strong. It was the broken-down, trembling, aged Sir Arthur she could not meet. "Whose ring?" he repeated, and shook her as he held her. She straightened herself, and with her free hand swept a gesture of pride towards the portrait on the wall. Far away was she, in the depth of her grand passion, from the sordid speculations of his mind. "What!" he shouted, dropped her hand, and ran to the dressing-table, flinging a candle on high to stare. "Why—why!" he stammered, putting down the light. "Pooh, what nonsense is this? You can’t put me off like this now. That—why, that’s poor English!" "And I," she cried, walking up to him, "I am Mrs. English. Oh, that was the mistake! You thought I was Lady Gerardine. I never was. You took a dream woman and thought she was your wife. I never was your wife. I am his—his only. Now you understand, do you not?" Poor Sir Arthur! In proportion as her exaltation mounted, his heat of anger fell away. His bewilderment grew, and his perturbation. For a moment or two he tried to cling to his conviction of her guilt. We are always anxious to vindicate ourselves when we are moved to great wrath; and the more unjust we have been the more loth are we to give up our suspicions. But with these eyes of flame upon him, with these accents of passion in his ears, even he could not maintain his damning judgment. The first hypothesis, that of insanity, came back to him in full force. Then arose a mitigated suggestion. A man of desultory reading, he had a smattering of many subjects. He had heard of that form of mental trouble called auto-suggestion—_idée fixe_. He looked round the room. By George, there was another portrait of poor English! And, as he lived, a photograph of him on the chimney-piece. He had passed one on the stairs. And now he remembered the daub in the hall. He drew a long breath. This little damp hole of a place, with the fellow’s head staring down at one from every corner—yes, that was it—it had been too much for her in her nervous state of health. The next words she spoke brought confirmation: