Her husband looked at her, dazed. “The scoundrel!” he exclaimed, under his breath. “Perhaps now you can understand why I loathe him so. I always knew what he was. I’ve always been afraid of him.” Briggs grew suddenly angry. “Why didn’t you speak of this before? Why didn’t you?” He clasped his hands over his face. “God!” he exclaimed. “I couldn’t. He said it would ruin you.” “Ruin me!” Briggs repeated, savagely. Then he looked pityingly at his wife. “And you’ve kept silent all these months just to protect me?” He turned away. “I might have known what this life would lead to,” he went on, as if speaking to himself. “I’ve dragged myself through the gutter, and I’ve dragged my family with me.” Helen rose from the couch. “You ought to have told me,” he went on, this time without reproach. “That would have been the only fair thing to do. But it isn’t too late,” he concluded, grimly. A look of alarm appeared in her face. “What do you mean, Douglas?” “Oh, I don’t mean that I intend to kill him,” he replied, with a scorn that was plainly directed against himself. “We can get along without any heroics.” “What--?” She looked at him with the helplessness of a woman in such a situation. Then she walked toward him. “Please let it all go, Douglas,” she said. “No harm has been done--to me, I mean. Don’t, don’t----” “Don’t make a scandal? No, I won’t. I promise you that. You’ve suffered enough out of this thing.” He had an impulse to go forward and embrace her, but a fear of appearing too spectacular checked him. He had the Anglo-Saxon’s horror of acting up to a situation. Besides, in her manner there was something that stung his pride. He could more easily have borne reproaches. When she had left the room he asked himself what he could do. He felt as helpless as his wife had been a few moments before. Of course, he would break with West; but this contingency did not affect the real question between them. He might thrash the fellow; but even that would be a poor satisfaction. He clearly saw that in this matter there could be no such thing for him as satisfaction. He alone was to blame; he had brought the shame on himself by introducing to his wife a man for whom no honest man or woman could feel respect. He must take his medicine, bitter as it was. The medicine grew more bitter as the days passed and he did nothing. West, he felt sure, would never enter his house again. When they did meet it would be in Washington, where he would let the fellow know that their business deals were at an end. There was no reason why they should not end now; he had done the work, and he had received his pay, he thought, with self-disgust. In future he should keep himself out of any such complications. West had taught him a lesson that would keep him straight for the rest of his life.