“Oh! you are cruel. If you knew the pain you are giving me! Hypocrite! yes, it is true; but I was not born like that. One is forced into it by the difficulties of life. When one has the wind against one, and wishes to advance, one tacks. I have tacked. Lay the blame on my miserable beginnings, my false entry into existence, and agree at least that one thing in me has never lied--my passion! Nothing has been able to kill it--neither your disdain, nor your abuse, nor all that I have read in your eyes, which for so many years have not once smiled at me. It is still my passion which gives me the strength, even after what I have just heard, to tell you why I am here. Listen! You told me once that you wanted a husband--some one who would watch over you during your work, who would take over some of the duties of the poor Crenmitz. Those were your own words, which wounded me then because I was not free. Now all that is changed. Will you marry me, Felicia?” “And your wife?” cried the young girl, while Paul was asking himself the same question. “My wife is dead.” “Dead? Mme. Jenkins? Is it true?” “You never knew her of whom I speak. The other was not my wife. When I met her I was already married in Ireland--years before. A horrible forced marriage. My dear, when I was twenty-five I was confronted with this alternative: a debtor’s prison or Miss Strang, an ugly and gouty old maid, sister of the usurer who had lent me five hundred pounds to pay for my medical studies. I preferred the prison; but after weeks and months I came to the end of my courage, and I married Miss Strang, who brought me for dowry--my note of hand. You can guess what my life was between these two monsters who adored each other. A jealous, impotent wife. The brother spied on me, following me everywhere. I should have gone away, but one thing kept me there. The usurer was said to be very rich. I wished to have some return for my cowardice. You see, I tell you all. Come now, I have been punished. Old Strang died insolvent; he used to gamble, had ruined himself without saying a word. Then I put my wife and her rheumatism in a hospital, and came to France. I had to begin existence again, more struggles and misery. But I had experience on my side, hatred and contempt for men, and my newly conquered liberty, for I did not dream that the horrible weight of this cursed union was going to hinder my getting on, at that distance. Happily, it is over--I am free.” “Yes, Jenkins, free. But why do you not make your wife the poor creature who has shared your life so long, so humble and devoted as she is?”