“I made no reply. I had found by bitter experience that if I intruded into the conversation, I should only suffer the more. “'I have sent down to Durazzo to get a doctor,' he went on; 'naturally having taken all this trouble I don't want to lose you by death. She is breaking up,' he repeated with relish and yet with an undertone of annoyance in his voice; 'she asked for you three times this morning.' “I kept myself under control as I had never expected that a man so desperately circumstanced could do. “'Kara,' I said as quietly as I could, 'what has she done that she should deserve this hell in which she has lived?' “He sent out a long ring of smoke and watched its progress across the dungeon. “'What has she done?' he said, keeping his eye on the ring--I shall always remember every look, every gesture, and every intonation of his voice. 'Why, she has done all that a woman can do for a man like me. She has made me feel little. Until I had a rebuff from her, I had all the world at my feet, Lexman. I did as I liked. If I crooked my little finger, people ran after me and that one experience with her has broken me. Oh, don't think,' he went on quickly, 'that I am broken in love. I never loved her very much, it was just a passing passion, but she killed my self-confidence. After then, whenever I came to a crucial moment in my affairs, when the big manner, the big certainty was absolutely necessary for me to carry my way, whenever I was most confident of myself and my ability and my scheme, a vision of this damned girl rose and I felt that momentary weakening, that memory of defeat, which made all the difference between success and failure. “'I hated her and I hate her still,' he said with vehemence; 'if she dies I shall hate her more because she will remain everlastingly unbroken to menace my thoughts and spoil my schemes through all eternity.' “He leant forward, his elbows on his knees, his clenched fist under his chin--how well I can see him!--and stared at me. “'I could have been king here in this land,' he said, waving his hand toward the interior, 'I could have bribed and shot my way to the throne of Albania. Don't you realize what that means to a man like me? There is still a chance and if I could keep your wife alive, if I could see her broken in reason and in health, a poor, skeleton, gibbering thing that knelt at my feet when I came near her I should recover the mastery of myself. Believe me,' he said, nodding his head, 'your wife will have the best medical advice that it is possible to obtain.' “Kara went out and I did not see him again for a very long time. He sent word, just a scrawled note in the morning, to say my wife had died.” John Lexman rose up from his seat, and paced the apartment, his head upon his breast. “From that moment,” he said, “I lived only for one thing, to punish Remington Kara. And gentlemen, I punished him.” He stood in the centre of the room and thumped his broad chest with his clenched hand.