"To my wife I told the whole story, but she refused to believe me. I confessed that I had remembered about Mrs. Veilsturm when it was too late, but she accused me of knowing the truth from the first, and of having wilfully acted as I had done. Nothing I could say could shake her belief in this matter, and she swore she would never forgive me for the insult I had placed upon her. "What could I do? Nothing! except retire from the scene. In vain I assured her of my complete innocence. She refused to believe my statement, and drove me from her presence--from my home--with cruel words. This woman, wrapped up in an armour of purity--of selfish purity--could not credit my innocence in any way. She judged me from the 'I-would-not-have-acted-thus' standpoint, and insisted that I had betrayed her basely, although she had no further proof than the gossip of the world. "I left her. I came back to London to see Mrs. Veilsturm again. It is wrong--I know it is wrong--but what am I to do? Live an isolated existence, pass days and nights of abject misery, only to pander to her self-righteous ideas? For eighteen months, in spite of all my tenderness and love, she has wilfully neglected me, she has refused to acknowledge that I have been a good husband, she has rendered my life miserable, and now she has driven me forth from my own home on account of a sin--if it can be called so--of which I am guiltless. "What am I to do? Live the life of a hermit in order to right myself in her eyes and be called back and pardoned, as if I were indeed guilty? No! I will not do so. It is her fault, not mine, that I am placed in such a miserable position. Unable to win her by tenderness, by love, I will henceforth live my own life and see what neglect will do. For every pang she has inflicted upon me I will inflict a pang upon her, for her months of neglect I will repay her in full, for her coldness I will give coldness in my turn, and to any remonstrances she may offer I will say then what I say now--'It is your work.'" So far the cases of husband and wife, each arguing from their own point of view. Now which of them is right, the man or the woman? The husband who strove to win his wife's love, or the wife who refused to give the husband that love which was his due. Errington was now acting wrongly, as he himself knew; he was voluntarily flinging himself into the arms of a woman whom he knew to be worthless, but who can say he had no provocation? He had done his best to win his wife's love, he had suffered in silence during the period of his married life, and in return she had shamefully neglected him, and had finally, with hardly any proof, accused him of voluntarily making a friend of a worthless woman. Outraged by this treatment, the husband left her presence, and she had driven him into the very jaws of destruction.