aste for cheap claret when you have been accustomed to dry
champagne. We have bodies to think of as well as souls; we are apt to
forget that in moments of excitement.

"She fell ill, and it seemed to me that I had dragged her from the soil
where she had grown only to watch her die. And then he came, precisely
at the right moment. I cannot help admiring him. Most men take their
revenge clumsily, hurting themselves; he was so neat, had been so
patient. I am not even ashamed of having fallen into his trap; it was
admirably baited. Maybe I had despised him for having seemed to submit
meekly to the blow. What cared he for me and my opinion? It was she was
all he cared for. He knew her better than I, knew that sooner or later
she would tire, not of love but of the cottage; look back with longing
eyes towards all that she had lost. Fool! Cuckold! What was it to him
that the world would laugh at him, despise him? Love such as his made
fools of men. Would I not give her back to him?

"By God! It was fine acting; half into the night we talked, I leaving
him every now and again to creep to the top of the stairs and listen to
her breathing. He asked me my advice, I being the hard-headed partner of
cool judgment. What would be the best way of approaching her after I was
gone? Where should he take her? How should they live till the nine days'
talk had died away? And I sat opposite to him--how he must have longed
to laugh in my silly face--advising him! We could not quite agree as
to details of a possible yachting cruise, and I remember hunting up an
atlas, and we pored over it, our heads close together. By God! I envy
him that night!"

He sank back on his pillows and laughed and coughed, and laughed and
coughed again, till I feared that wild, long, broken laugh would be his
last. But it ceased at length, and for awhile, exhausted, he lay silent
before continuing.

"Then came the question: how was I to go? She loved me still. He was
sure of it, and, for the matter of that, so was I. So long as she
thought that I loved her, she would never leave me. Only from her
despair could fresh hope arise for her. Would I not make some sacrifice
for her sake, persuade her that I had tired of her? Only by one means
could she be convinced. My going off alone would not suffice; my reason
for that she might suspect--she might follow. It would be for her sake.
Again it was the hero that I played, the dear old chuckle-headed hero,
Paul, that you oug