While the house was being prepared for our reception, I heard nothing of Maxwell. I thought of him often, and I sometimes fancied that Barbara was not so ignorant as myself of his whereabouts and doings--a supposition which proved to be true, but his name was not mentioned by either of us. In looking back upon those days I can see that I was acting a part as well as Barbara. I was miserably conscious of it at the time, but it did not strike me as it strikes me now. Words of affection had no meaning, and we knew it--and knowing it, nursed in our hearts the belief that the other was a hypocrite. I have no desire to show myself in a favorable light to Barbara's disadvantage. Her judgment of me was warped by her passion for drink, and my judgment of her was perhaps harsher than it should have been because of the bitter disappointment under which I labored. I could not always be patient, I could not always endure in silence; she stung me by her sly cunning, by the artful entanglements she wove for me, by the detestable assumption of religious fervor which she used to mask the degrading vice which made my life a hell. I had to be continually on the alert to avoid public exposure, and in this endeavor Annette was useful, for she did what she could to shield her mistress. Self-interest was her motive, for Barbara was continually making her presents of money and articles of jewelry and dress. I was quite aware that she was my enemy, that when she spoke of me she lied and traduced me, but I could find no fault with her when she was in my presence. It may be that she held me in contempt because I did not beat or kill my wife. We gave up our flat, and took up our quarters in the home in which before my marriage I had hoped to live an honorable and happy life. That hope was dead, and in my contemplations of the future I could see no ray of light. There was but one source of relief--work. Hard toil, exhausting manual labor would have done me good; failing that, I had my pen. My visits to the vice-haunted haunts of London had supplied me with a theme. "What does my dear boy think of it?" Barbara asked, on the morning we entered the house. "It looks very clean and new," I replied, as we walked through the rooms. "It is what I aimed at, dear. We are going to commence a new life. No more wrangles or disagreements, no more misunderstandings, everything that is unpleasant wiped off the slate. I am never going to worry you again. Can I say more than that?" "We shall be all the happier, Barbara, if you keep that in mind." '"Of course I shall keep it in mind. And you, too, John--you will keep it in mind, and not worry me. Fair play's a jewel. This is my morning room. Isn't it sweet? And this," opening a communicating door, "is my prayer room, my very, very own. I shall come here whenever I feel naughty, and pray to be good. Oh, what a consolation there is in prayer!"