“It will not be necessary, sir, for Mrs. Varian has saved me the trouble of a long explanation. What she has related is perfectly true on the face of it, but behind the tragedy of our divorce lie the actual facts of the terrible mistakes of a jealous woman and a heedless man too secure of his great happiness to guard it close enough.” A great thrill ran through the listeners, as he continued: “I hold myself to blame that I was impatient of my wife’s jealousy, and laughed at her fears that Miss Lowe was trying to win my heart. I pitied my ward for her orphanage and poverty, and I was too generous to believe that she was aught but a joyous-hearted girl whose little kittenish coquetries amounted to nothing. I was simply blind, besides being inordinately proud and passionately resentful of my wife’s unjust suspicions. I loved her to idolatry, and her lack of faith angered me. I carried everything with too high a hand, perhaps, but I did not dream to what lengths the affair was going.” Doctor Deane interposed gently: “You are exhausting your strength by too long a discourse.” “Doctor, what difference can it make to a dying man whether his little stock of strength is exhausted sooner or later?” wearily. “Go on then; but be brief.” “I found out too late,” continued Everard Dawn, “that Miss Lowe was different from what I thought. She had indeed conceived a mad love for me that had driven her to desperate lengths to win me. It is true that she followed me to Georgia, true that I married her, but only because of her passionate pleadings and assertions that through my wife’s jealousy her character had been ruined. I gave her the shelter of my name, but, God forgive me, I hated her as long as she lived, and could not help rejoicing when she was dead. I obtained a position as a commercial traveler, so that I could spend most of my time away from her side, so her victory was a poor one after all, for she had wrecked two lives without gaining any happiness for herself. As for the rest, I affirm now on my death-bed and on my hopes of heaven, that Gladys Lowe and I were as innocent of wrong-doing before my divorce as the purest angel. She was wicked enough to make my wife believe it, through her jealousy so easily imposed on, but she was not guilty, so help me Heaven!” He paused, and there rose a stifled cry of bitter anguish. It came from Cinthia’s ghastly lips as the cruel truth began to dawn on her bewildered brain. Everard Dawn looked at her pityingly, and said: “Ah, Cinthia, you understand it all now. She was your mother. Perhaps you will not blame me now that I failed in love to you, that I forgot my duty to you in resentment at what you represented--the wicked love of a woman who wrecked my life in parting me from all that made it dear.”