She was in no way responsible for the disasters which had fallen on his business; she furnished no excuse for the crime he had committed, but she was one of the elements in his misfortune; and now that she had fallen into an odious fault, he resolved to put no impediment in her downward career, so long as her descent did not become apparent or public. It was a sad development of the romantic and chivalric story of Wat Grey's wooing. But then, so long as Daneford knew nothing of the decay of that romance or the decline of that chivalry, the fact that both were going--gone, was of little moment to Wat Grey. His embezzlement of the money had taught him that damaging facts had no injurious influence with the public--so long as the facts were carefully concealed. He found crime an easier burden than he had expected, and in place of his old dread of crime itself he had now a dread of disclosure only. If he had grown to hate his wife, what then--so long as no one knew of it. Up to this point Fate seemed to have played deliberately into his hands. He had ruined himself in Southern expectations, Fate had put more than half a million of money into his power, and he had extricated his fortune. An unlucky turn of the die might have betrayed him, and given him up to worse destruction than the former, but all came round as though he had the ordering of events. Not only was there to be no immediate call for that money, no immediate investigation into accounts with a checking of documents and an examination of affairs, but he was appointed supreme custodian of the whole property, and, for upwards of a year from the old man's death, no enquiry disadvantageous to him could be set on foot. Suppose the old man were to die soon, and business were to keep on the disastrous lines it had adopted of late? What then? What then? Many and many a day he put that question to himself in the morning before he broke his fast; and again at night before he went to bed he repeated this terrible question--unanswered. And the more he pondered over this question the less he liked to look at the answer. Not that the simple and direct answer appalled him, for that had been familiar to his mind for some time; the simple answer was, Ruin--Self-imposed Death. That was the positive answer to the question; but that did not affright him _now_, though it had terrified him at first. He was still what might be called a young man, for he carried his five-and-forty years more easily than many another man carried thirty. He was not a whit insensible to the many physical and social personal advantages he possessed. He knew he was a favourite wherever he went. He knew he was good-looking. He knew he was clever. He knew he was married. His wife had brought him nothing worth speaking of--not position, happiness. He had been everything to her, and how poorly had she requited him! It was only by the utmost care he avoided a damning scandal alighting upon his name through her.