"I will betray you!" Good God, how I had been betrayed! Barbara was mine forever; as Maxwell had said, she was all my own. We were linked together; our fates were united. There were no separate paths which each could tread apart from the other. Hand in hand we must take our way, and death alone could tear us asunder. On my honor as a man there died within me during those few moments of torturing reflection all the love I had borne for Barbara. I awoke to the fact that it was not true love, but animal passion for her beauty, that had led me into this pit of shame and despair. Some men arrive, by slow and devious roads, at a belief that shakes their faith to its foundations. Not so I. As surely as I knew that I lived and moved did I know that I was wedded to a drunkard, and that there was no civilized law that could divorce me from her. I was Barbara's shield and protector, her lord, her master, her victim. Her claim upon me was not to be evaded; even to dispute it would cover me with ignominy, would make my name a bye-word. I could not break the fetters of the law which bound us together and made us one. Had Barbara not been a confirmed drunkard, she could never have drank a full bottle of brandy in so short a time. Three or four glasses would have overcome her, and she could not have continued to tipple. Think what you will of me, I declare that I had no compassion for the woman I had married. No pity for her stirred my heart. Perfect in its devilish cunning was the duplicity she had practised. "You do not like wine?" I had said to her. "I detest it," she had answered; and never in my presence had she drank anything except water. Most artfully had she concealed from me a secret which was to wreck all my hopes of happiness, which was to shut out from me all the pure and innocent pleasures which a man at my time of life might naturally look forward to. What pity could I have for one who had done this evil?