all things. Beside that epic atom
Mildred dwindled inconceivably.

And David ... David, who had shaken his handsome head sorrowfully over his
brother's ruined career, who had been horribly sick at the scandal,
shudderingly alive to the disgrace, sorrowfully, regretfully compelled to
admit that the evidence of guilt was overwhelming ... he did not trust
himself to think of David overmuch. That way of thought led to Cain's
portion in the very pit of Hell. For six months subsequently to the
finding of the Jury in the well-known criminal case, The Crown _v._
Saxham, David had married Mildred. If she had been innocent of actual
treachery, here was the smooth, brotherly betrayer, unmasked and loathly
in the sight of the betrayed.

How quietly the storm-clouds had piled up on his bright horizon at the
close of his second year of active, brilliant, successful work!

The first lightning-flash, the first faint mutter of thunder, had passed
almost unnoticed. Then the tempest broke, and the building wrought by a
strong man's labours, and toils, and hopes, and joys, and dolours had been
lifted, and torn, and rent, and scattered as a hill-bothy of poles and
straw-bundles, or a moorland shelter of heather and bushes is scattered by
the fury of a northern mountain-blast.

His practice had become a large and, despite the many claims of Lazarus at
the gates, a lucrative one by the commencement of his third year of
residence in Chilworth Street. It was the end of April. He was to be
married to Mildred in July. That move to Harley Street had been decided
upon, the house taken and beautified. Though his love for her was not
demonstrative or romantic, it was deep, and tender, and strong, and
hopeful, and Life to this man had seemed very sweet--five years ago. He
was successful professionally and socially. He had been chosen to assist a
surgeon of great eminence in the performance of a critical operation upon
a semi-Royalty. He had written, and publishers had published, a remarkable
work. "The Diseases of Civilisation" had been greeted by the scientific
reviewers with a chorus of praise, passed through four or five
editions--had been translated into several European languages; and his
"Text-Book of Clinical Surgery" had been recommended to advanced students
by the leading professors of the Medical Schools when the horrible thing
befell.

XIV

It was in '94, when even the electro-motor was not in general use, and the
petrol-driv