He thought of the ambitious, successful barrister, heart-sick at the fetters which he had fastened upon his life, tired of his faded mistress, seeing all gates open to him were he but free to pass them; still living apart from the world, at a time of life when all the social instincts are at their highest development, when a man loves the society of his fellow-men, the friction of crowds, the sound of his own voice, and every social tribute that the world can offer to his talents and his success. He saw his kinsman galled by the chain which love and honour had hung about him, loathing his bondage, longing for liberty—saw him with the possibility of a brilliant marriage suddenly offering itself to him, a lovely girl ready to throw herself into his arms, a fortune at his feet, and the keen ambition of a self-made man goading him like a spur. How did it end? Did death set him free—death, the loosener of all bonds? Or did his mistress sacrifice herself and her broken heart to his welfare, and of her own accord release him? There are women capable of such sacrifices. It would seem that his disentanglement, however it came about, had been perfect of its kind; for no rumour of a youthful intrigue, no scandal about a cast-off mistress had ever clouded the married life of James Dalbrook. Even in Cheriton village, where the very smallest nucleus in the way of fact was apt to swell into a gigantic scandal, even at Cheriton nobody had ever hinted at indiscretions in the earlier years of the local magnate. And then Theodore Dalbrook asked himself the essential question: What bearing, if any, had this episode of his kinsman’s life upon the murder of Juanita’s husband? What dark and vengeful figure lurked in the background of that common story of dishonourable love? An outraged husband, a brother, a father? That obscure life apart from friends and acquaintances would show that some great wrong had been done, some sacred tie had been broken. Only a sinful union so hides its furtive happiness—only a deep sense of degradation will reconcile a woman to banishment from the society of her own sex. Whether that forsaken mistress were dead or living there might lurk in her sad history the elements of tragedy, the motive for a ghastly revenge; and on this account the story possessed a grim fascination for Theodore Dalbrook. He lay awake the greater part of the night thinking in a fitful way of that illicit ménage in the unfashionable suburb—the suburb whose very existence is unknown to society. He fell asleep long after the sun was up, only to dream confusedly of a strange woman who was now James Dalbrook’s lawful wife—and now his victim—and whose face had vague resemblances to other faces, and who was and was not half a dozen other women in succession.