inary proceeding
of his wife's would set him free. Kate Theory felt rather weary and
mystified,--all the more for knowing that henceforth Captain Benyon's
variations would be the most important thing in life for her.

This officer, on his ship in the bay, lingered very late on deck that
night,--lingered there, indeed, under the warm southern sky, in which
the stars glittered with a hot, red light, until the early dawn began to
show. He smoked cigar after cigar, he walked up and down by the hour, he
was agitated by a thousand reflections, he repeated to himself that
it made a difference,--an immense difference; but the pink light had
deepened in the east before he had discovered in what the diversity
consisted. By that time he saw it clearly,--it consisted in Georgina's
being in his power now, in place of his being in hers. He laughed as he
sat there alone in the darkness at the thought of what she had done. It
had occurred to him more than once that she would do it,--he believed
her capable of anything; but the accomplished fact had a freshness of
comicality. He thought of Mr. William Roy, of his big income, of his
being "quite affectionate," of his blooming son and heir, of his having
found such a worthy successor to poor Mrs. Dora. He wondered whether
Georgina had happened to mention to him that she had a husband living,
but was strongly of the belief that she had not. Why should she, after
all? She had neglected to mention it to so many others. He had thought
he knew her, in so many years,--that he had nothing more to learn about
her; but this ripe stroke revived his sense of her audacity. Of course
it was what she had been waiting for, and if she had not done it sooner
it was because she had hoped he would be lost at sea in one of his long
cruises and relieve her of the necessity of a crime. How she must hate
him to-day for not having been lost, for being alive, for continuing to
put her in the wrong! Much as she hated him, however, his own loathing
was at least a match for hers. She had done him the foulest of
wrongs,--she had ravaged his life. That he should ever detest in this
degree a woman whom he had once loved as he loved her, he would not have
thought possible in his innocent younger years. But he would not have
thought it possible then that a woman should be such a cold-blooded
devil as she had been. His love had perished in his rage,--his blinding,
impotent rage at finding that he had been duped, and measur