insight told him the truth, he could not help admiring and wishing the more that he could gain any influence over her. He had the more power over Jerome–a power which he valued, though he would as a matter of taste have preferred the other, since there was assuredly more glory in being able to influence a pure and exalted soul, than one weakened by selfishness and enervated by a feeling of self-contempt. He had not failed to probe Jerome Wellfield’s heart, as opportunity was afforded. One day, in a fit of almost intolerable remorse, when he had just heard the news of Sara’s having been at the point of death, and of her marriage with Falkenberg, and when, as it seemed to him, his wife was fading away before his eyes, consumed with her sorrow, Jerome had confessed–it could be called nothing else. The temptation of confiding in one whom he felt to be so much stronger and more self-sufficing–one whose hold on life and the things of life was so much firmer than his own, had proved too strong. Wellfield had told him the whole story of his love for Sara Ford–of his conduct towards her, and that, when he dared to think of it, he loved her yet. For a short time it gave him relief, then Somerville let him know, by degrees, that he had fastened a chain about his wrists–that he was, to a certain extent, in his power; he hinted, in short, that Mrs. Wellfield might take umbrage at the story, if it were related to her. Wellfield cursed his own weakness for a time, and soon began to long inexpressibly for some change of scene, however fleeting. He had deteriorated–that goes without saying. Deterioration–mental and moral–is as natural, as inevitable a consequence of a series of actions such as his had lately been, as the sequence of the seasons, the rhythm of seedtime and harvest, of reaping and garnering is inevitable, as, to use the hackneyed scripture, to sow the wind and reap the whirlwind is inevitable. But of course the deterioration had scarcely yet begun visibly to manifest itself. His wife’s state had more influence with him than his own restless longings. His place was beside her–every voice of nature and of duty told him so, and he obeyed their mandate. The summer passed on. Nita did not expect her confinement until the end of October–and until that was over he must assuredly remain with her. Things were, then, in this state at the beginning of October, when one of those things happened which do happen sometimes–little things in seeming, and which yet make grim sport with the greater things which seem of so much more importance.