of
late, when I have got home, she has been away, and has not returned
till much after midnight. Hour after hour I have sat there in the
extremest misery, waiting, waiting, feeling as though my brain would
burst with its strain! I have no idea where she goes to. If I ask, she
only retorts by asking me where I spend the nights when I am with you,
and laughs contemptuously when I tell her the truth. Her suspicions and
jealousy are incessant, and torture me past endurance. Once or twice, I
confess, I have lost patience, and have spoken angrily, too angrily;
then she has accused me of brutal disregard of her sufferings. It would
hurt me less if she pierced me with a knife. Only this morning there
was a terrible scene; she maddened me past endurance by her wretched
calumnies--accusing me of I know not what disgraceful secrets--and when
words burst from me involuntarily, she fell into hysterics, and
shrieked till all the people in the house ran up in alarm. Can you
understand what this means to one of my temperament? To have my private
affairs forced upon strangers in this way tortures me with the pains of
hell. I am naturally reticent and retiring--too much so, I dare
say--and no misery could have been devised for me more dreadful than
this. Her accusations are atrocious, such as could only come from a
grossly impure mind, or at the suggestion of vile creatures. You she
hates with a rabid hatred--God only knows why. She would hate any one
who was my friend, and whose society relieved me for a moment from my
ghastly torments!"

He ceased for very exhaustion, so terribly did the things he described
work upon him.

"What am I to do, Waymark? Can you give me advice?"

Waymark had listened with his eyes cast down, and he was silent for
some time after Julian ceased.

"You couldn't well ask for advice in a more difficult case," he said at
length. "There's nothing for it but to strengthen yourself and endure.
Force yourself into work. Try to forget her when she is out of sight."

"But," broke in Julian, "this amounts to a sentence of death! What of
the life before me, of the years I shall have to spend with her? Work,
forget myself, forget her,--that is just what I _cannot_ do! My nerves
are getting weaker every day; I am beginning to have fits of trembling
and horrible palpitation; my dreams are hideous with vague
apprehensions, only to be realised when I wake. Work! Half my misery is
caused by the thought that my work is at