I walked home to Bruton Street and found Hubbard ensconced before the fire. The night was chilly enough to warrant one, despite the season. He was staring gloomily into the heart of the glowing coals. I helped myself to a glass of whisky and took an armchair beside him. "I can't stand this. I'll go abroad," he announced at the end of a good half hour. "What's the matter, Hubbard?" "Oh! I've been there again. I couldn't keep away. She was alone, for a wonder." "You refer to your wife, I suppose. Well?" He allowed me to finish my cigar before replying, then he said: "I have no business to tell you, but I shall. She is in love, and I believe with you." "Nonsense." "I wish it were," he answered dreamily, "but it is not. She has practically admitted it." "That--she cares for me?" I cried. "No--but for someone. And I am not so great a fool that I cannot read between the lines, although she thinks so. Her thoughts dwell constantly on you." "Impossible!" He turned and gazed at me. "It's so, old man, upon my honour." "You are mistaken, Dixon." "I know you are as true as steel," he muttered. "That is why I do not even feel a wish to thwart the fates. I am nothing but an interloper, a marplot. I ought to efface myself. When I am strong enough I shall. But I wish you'd be frank with me--Hugh, entirely frank. You think you despise her now, but you are sure you have no other feeling deep at heart? Think well before you answer, Hugh!" "Why?" "Because if I were sure that you cared, too, I would find my happiness in helping. You are worthy of her--and she--as God hears me, is worthy of the best man living." "Dixon! Dixon!" "Oh! I know this must sound oddly from my lips. But though I've been a fool, I'm wiser now. I hold a purer, finer faith; a human faith. And it is now my deep belief that the greatest crime of all is the prevention of the fullest union of predestined mates--and all that sin entails--the birth of children generated by the fires of lust and hate upon the copperplate of physical and psychical indifference; the production of a race prenatally ordained to be degenerates; the determination of unhappy souls galled into madness by their chains,--their ultimate destruction."