r
spying upon me, following me everywhere. I might have fled. But one
thing detained me. The money-lender was said to be enormously rich. I
proposed at all events to secure the profits of my cowardice. You see, I
tell you everything. However, I was well punished. Old Strang died
insolvent; he was a gambler, and had ruined himself without saying a
word. Thereupon I placed my wife's rheumatism in an asylum and came to
France. I had to begin life anew, to struggle with poverty once more.
But I had on my side experience, hatred and contempt for mankind, and
freedom, for I did not suspect that the horrible ball and chain of that
infernal union would continue to impede my steps at a distance. Luckily
it's all over, and I am free at last."

"Yes, Jenkins, free. But why doesn't it occur to you to marry the poor
creature who has shared your life so long, humble and devoted to you as
we have all seen her?"

"Oh!" he said with a burst of sincere feeling, "between my two galleys I
believe I preferred the other, where I could show my indifference or my
hatred without restraint. But the ghastly comedy of conjugal love, of
unwearying happiness, when for so many years I have loved no one but
you, thought of no one but you! There's no such torture on earth. If I
can judge by my own experience, the poor woman must have shouted with
relief and joy when we separated. That is the only farewell greeting I
hoped for from her."

"But who forced you to use such restraint."

"Paris, society, the world. Being married according to public opinion,
we were bound by it."

"And now you are no longer so bound?"

"Now there is one thing that overshadows everything else, the thought of
losing you, of seeing you no more. Oh! when I learned of your flight,
when I saw the sign: TO LET, on your door, I felt that the time for
poses and grimaces had gone by, that there was nothing for me to do but
to pack up and rush after my happiness, which you were carrying away.
You left Paris, I did the same. Everything in your house was sold;
everything in my house is to be sold."

"And she?" rejoined Felicia, with a shudder. "She, the irreproachable
companion, the virtuous woman whom no one has ever suspected, where will
she go? what will she do? And you have come to propose to me to take her
place? A stolen place, and in what a hell! Aha! And our motto, honest
Jenkins, virtuous Jenkins, what are we to do with that? 'Do good without
hope,' old man!"

At that