, and that
I had extinguished that by my own behaviour.

'I asked her what behaviour. She was silent. Then the
flood-gates of my wrath broke loose, and I put all her
weakness and wickedness before her. Ah, how I spoke! You may
think you have heard me eloquent. But you never have. I was
that afternoon as one inspired. I stood there on the bare
sands, alone with her, with the wind rushing past us, and
the sea roaring in front, and the wild seabirds wheeling and
screaming far away. Oh, it was a grand hour for me! The
frenzy mounted to my brain. I felt like a destroying angel.
I took her miserable girl's heart in my hands and rent it in
twain, and cast its miserable pretences to the earth. I
showed her myself, my manhood, my ardour, my passion, my
devotion. I terrified her, awed her, fascinated her. For a
time I think I had almost won upon her to yield.

'But my power forsook me. No sooner did I see the first
symptom of returning tenderness in her, or what I mistook
for it, than my hatred and rage departed; I was melted in a
moment; I flung myself in front of her on my face, and
implored her with sobs and tears to give me one little spark
of love. Fool that I was! Fool! Fool!

'She took advantage of my weakness. Doubtless she despised
me for it. She made me one of those mincing, lying answers
that women know how to make to us in our madness, and she
took courage at last to rise and leave me lying there--lying
there with my face upon the wet sand, and the wet rain
beating down upon my head, and the moaning tempest rising
over me in the heavens, like the awful eruption of maniacal
hatred that was working its way into my being within.

'I got up at night and came away. I suppose I still looked
and acted as if I were sane. At all events, the people I
passed said nothing to me. I packed up and left for Abertaff
that night.

'With me I took an object which I had picked up on the sands
where Eleanor had sat. It was the key of the house where she
lived. When I caught sight of it it seemed like an
inspiration. In an instant I resolved to make use of it to
execute my vengeance. Since I could not marry Eleanor, I
would kill her.

'But in the train a more subtle scheme presented itself. If
I killed her, she would be lost to