"Yes, and a sad fate," sighed Lord Arleigh. "You cannot understand my story entirely. Wanting a full explanation, you might fairly ask me why I married with this drawback. I did not know of it, but my wife believed I did. We were both most cruelly deceived, it does not matter now. She is condemned to a loveless, joyless life; so am I. With a wife beautiful loving, young, I must lead a most solitary existence--I must see my name die out for want of heirs--I must see my race almost extinct, my life passed in repining and misery, my heart broken, my days without sunshine. I repeat that it is a sad fate." "It is indeed," agreed the earl--"and such a strange one. Are you quite sure that nothing can be done to remedy it?" "Quite sure," was the hopeless reply. "I can hardly understand the need for separation, seeing that the wife herself is blameless." "In this case it is unavoidable." "May I, without seeming curious, ask you a question?" said the earl. "Certainly--as many as you like." "You can please yourself about answering it," observed the earl; and then he added: "Tell me, is it a case of insanity? Has your wife any hereditary tendency to anything of that kind?" "No," replied Lord Arleigh; "it is nothing of that description. My wife is to me perfect in body and mind; I can add nothing to that." "Then your story is a marvel; I do not--I cannot understand it. Still I must say that, unless there is something far deeper and more terrible than I can imagine, you have done wrong to part from your wife." "I wish I could think so. But my doom is fixed, and no matter how long I live, or she lives, it can never be altered."