How little had he foreseen this or anything remotely resembling it on that moonlight night. She promised to give him then all that she was, all that she knew of in herself, and it was with a thrill of love, exquisite and secret, that he had promised himself to teach her what she did not know. It should be he who would wake in her passion and the fire and the flower of her womanhood, and even as he had already given himself and all he was to her, so she, as the fire awoke, should find that precious gift of herself to him daily grow in worth and wonder. It was that, that last and final gift that she had promised now, but not to him. And with that given elsewhere, he felt he would not, or rather could not, take her, even if it was to deliver her soul from hell itself. Then (and in justice to him it must be said that this lasted only for a little time), what other people would say weighed on him, and what they would say with regard to his conduct now. And for the same minute's pace he almost envied those myriad many to whom nothing happens, who know nothing of the extremes of joy, such as he had felt, or the extremes of utter abandonment and despair, such as were his now. Assuredly, in the world's view, it was now in his power to do something to right himself, to make himself appear, anyhow, what is called a man of spirit; he could curse her, he could strike him; he could make some explosion or threaten it, which would be hard for either of the two others to face. Madge had sat to Evelyn alone, she had often done that, Evelyn was a friend of his; and here he could blast him, he could make him appear such that the world in general would surely decline the pleasure of his acquaintance. Madge again, if he was minded on vengeance, how execrable, how rightly execrable, he could make her conduct appear. There was no end to the damage, reckoning damage by the opinion of the world, that he could do to both of them. All this he could easily do; the bakemeats for the marriage-table were, so to speak, already hot--they could so naturally furnish the funeral-feast, as far as the world was concerned, of either Evelyn or Madge. The whole thing was indecent.