In a dazed, stupid way he put the revolver on the table and took the chair, as he had been asked. "Now, sir, it is time you knew all. Your son is now happily married to a woman I once madly loved. Remember, I am not using the word 'madly' in any figurative or poetic sense; I am talking the commonest and most ordinary prose. I loved her madly, notwithstanding the fact that I was engaged to be married to another woman. And without knowing that he did it, and to tell the truth, after I had been rejected by her, he made love to her and succeeded. Then it was that something rose within me, which you have to-night called by a variety of names, which others would call hate, jealousy, revenge, but perhaps which might be called insanity more truly than anything else. I am sure I must have been mad at the time. I remember nothing of it but a hurry in my head, a tumult in my blood, a wild desire to do something that I knew was not right, and yet which I knew I must do. Then I remember no more until I awoke healed of the fever of madness and hurt in the encounter with Eugene." He rose from his chair heavily as he spoke, crossed to the table where the revolver lay, took up the weapon, and said: "A capital revolver--a splendid revolver, sir--a six-chamber one. According to our own showing neither of us has much to live for; and according to your showing the hangman would be the only person seriously injured if I committed suicide. If you are disposed to have half of this I promise to take the other half, and then we shall both be quits." "Are you mad again?" "Not yet; but I feel it coming on." CHAPTER XI. "Personally," continued Lavirotte, "I have no desire to shoot you. You are at perfect liberty to live. But as you were so sure a little while ago that you were a dead man, and I was one also, it doesn't make much difference who pulls the trigger. Yet I think, before we take our final leave of the world, it would be just as well we had a quiet little chat." "You don't mean to say," cried James O'Donnell, "that you would murder me in cold blood?" "How can I murder you in cold blood, or in heat, since you say you are already dead? When a man is dead to the law, as in the case of a man sentenced to death, no one ever thinks of calling the hangman's office that of a murderer. Viewing your case from my point, I cannot see that death would be any grievous harm to you. By your stupid folly you have ruined yourself, your family, and been accessory to the ruin of hundreds. You are old, and have no reason to hope for any great prolongation of life. Outside your own business you never have been remarkable for any quality which could now bring you bread. Candidly, Mr. O'Donnell, I don't see any reason why you shouldn't die, and why I shouldn't shoot you."