“It’s all very plain to understand now,” he answered. “She wanted that man and she couldn’t chuck me without some sort of excuse, so she worked up this idea, that I was a brute and tormenting her to death and so on. Then she made Kellock believe it; and though he kept perfectly straight, so far as I know, while he thought Medora was happily married to me, as soon as she began about me being a cruel devil that made her life hell and all that, then Kellock no doubt believed her. Why, he went so far as to lecture me a while back along, and I knocked him in the water for doing so. I’ll swear he had no thought to run away with her then—unless he’s the biggest traitor that ever walked the earth. But he ain’t that sort. I simply can’t see that man doing this job.” “I’m glad you can keep so cool and sensible, Ned. Nothing’s gained by getting angered, though I’m angered I promise you, and anger’s a righteous thing sometimes. I’m struck to the heart over this; and if I’d thought for an instant ’twas in her wicked mind even as a shadow, I’d have given you due notice. But I never dreamed it. I’ve talked to her again and again and tried to show her sense; but she’s doomed herself by her own nature.” “The mischief is I couldn’t read her,” answered Mr. Dingle. “Not that I didn’t at first. She married me for love—no other reason—and for the first six months—nay ten—of our life together, I read her like a book. But after that she changed. And she got stranger and stranger, as we went on, till be damned if I didn’t find myself living with a different woman! And, mind this, I was never rough nor harsh to her, till she’d egged me on to being so. I put up with a devil of a lot and kept my temper in a manner that surprised myself if not her; but she was out to make me lose it, because, till I did so, the things she wanted to happen couldn’t. And after a bit I did lose it. Who wouldn’t? Yet God’s my judge I was never very much enraged with her, because I always felt she was play-acting and making believe half the time; and that had a funny side; and sometimes it amused me more than it angered me. And above that was the sure knowledge that any open quarrel would be an unmanly thing and might lead to lasting trouble; and above that, again, was the fact that I loved Medora well. I never ceased to love her in her maddest tantrums. “Then comes this letter, and I can assure you it’s a bolt from the blue. And yet it’s all unreal somehow—I can’t grasp it home to me. I can’t believe it. I could almost laugh and say to myself it’s a dream and I shall wake up alongside Medora any minute.” His face was full of pain, as yet he showed more stunned surprise than anger.