"Other refuge have I none----" But she herself had chosen to seek other refuge, knowing full well what she did! Should he have tried to prevent her, to understand her distress, her condition of mind? She was frightened, indignant, and helpless, whatever her fault; and he had allowed her to go, had made no effort to save her, because he was blinded with fury, was jealous and hard, and perhaps unjust.... What was the story of all those years? He sickened to think. What had she suffered, endured, to bring her to this--poor little fair Rafella, with her gentle ways and her narrow knowledge of life? "Still support and comfort me----" He remembered her protest--how shocked she had been at his personal rendering of the words, how he had said in the rain that morning--the morning on which he had told her he loved her--that he meant to protect and support her as long as he lived. How had he kept his vow? "Leave, ah! leave me not alone----" Yes, he had left her alone, had been harsh and unyielding, without patience, without pity for the "helpless soul"; he had put her away, condemned her unheard, abandoned her to her fate.... He walked on, his head bent, his heart racked with a sharp and terrible remorse; it was his fault, his alone, that she had fallen to this hideous degradation; and now there was nothing he could do. It was irredeemable, beyond his power to cancel or to atone. As he turned into the compound his consciousness came back, as it were, to the present. The bungalow stood dark and silent, just as he had left it. Trixie was not there; he knew it, though he went inside and called her. Alarm again assailed him for her safety, and he paced the drive in nervous agitation, fearing she was ill, that an accident had happened. Never had she seemed so dear, so precious to him; that he could have mistrusted her at all now caused him shamed contrition, and all his grudging of her gaieties and freedom struck him at this moment in the light of selfishness and petty tyranny. The recognition, wakened by the bitter lesson of to-night, of how in time he might have strained her love and trust beyond endurance, filled him with acute dismay and consternation.