... I loved a woman--O God! betrayed! betrayed! Not by her. O God, save her from punishment and remorse! She was deceived. She shall not suffer. ... I do not know what God is. I sat thinking of Him an hour in the dark, last night. All I know is that mankind has made Him. He is the cry raised by their united voices when they wail. He is the uttermost anguish of their hearts. They had to call it something, this wail of terror and grief, and so they called it God. I call it God, too. I lift up my voice with theirs, and cry, God! God! ... I have taken to following them about the town. They went to the theatre last night. I sat in the gallery, and looked down on them. How familiar she seems--how truly mine! Can anybody steal what is mine? After the theatre I slept a little, and dreamed that we were on a shore, a silver strip of sands, with the sea black before us. I dragged her from him, and when I had struck him down, she turned to me, with a glad, low cry, and clung to me, all warm. She was glad! And I have been warm about the heart all day, for the remembrance dwells with me. How beautiful it would be to kill him, if after it was all over she would turn to me and rest here in my arms! Once I could have lived through this. There would have been horse and hound and battle-axe--sword and lance--all the rest of it. I could have gone away to the wars and worked off some of this horror. And now, like a rat in a trap, I've got to sit still here and go mad. [Sidenote: _Mrs. Montrose to Ernest Hume_] Dear friend,--We have made a wretched botch of it among us, with your poor boy. Zoe has jilted him. We might have guessed it. He has simply disappeared. He left a card here, and quietly changed his lodgings. At the Tremont House, they either don't know where he has gone or refuse to say. I am worried about him. Poor boy! poor boy! he won love everywhere, but he didn't want it. Only hers; and Captain Morton could have conjured her into a black cat any time these three years, if he had chosen. Don't blame me. There's a fate in things; and if you wanted your boy to escape tragedy, you shouldn't have given him that face. [Sidenote: _Ernest Hume to Francis Hume_] Dear boy,--Could you come down and see me a bit? I'm having a series of colds, and they keep me in bed and make me melancholy-stupid. Then, when you go back, perhaps I can go with you. Where are you now? From your giving the address of a post-office box, I fancy you have left the Tremont House. When will you come? [Sidenote: _Francis Hume to Ernest Hume_] Dear father,--I will come soon. I can't quite yet. I am sorry you are not well. I will come soon. [Sidenote: _To the Unknown Friend_]