em, and they
became, with their sinister obtrusiveness, a feature of the shows; the
breed was defined more clearly, and now they are known as Great Danes or
Ulms, indifferently. How they originated I never cared to learn. I
imagine it sometimes. I fancy some jilted, jaundiced descendant of the
sea-rovers, retiring to his castle, and endeavoring, by mating some ugly
bloodhound with a wild wolf, to produce a quadruped as fierce and
cowardly and treacherous as man or woman may be. He succeeded only
partially, but he did well.

"Never mind about the dog, and tell you why I've been gentleman, farmer,
sportsman and half-hermit here for the last five years--leaving
everything just as I was getting a grip on reputation in town, leaving a
pretty wife, too, after only a year of marriage? I can hardly do
that--that is, I can hardly drop the dog, because, you see, he's part of
the story. Hamlet would be left out decidedly were I to read the play
without him. Besides, I've never told the story to any one. I'll do it,
though, to-day. The whim takes me. Surely a fellow may enjoy the luxury
of being recklessly confidential once in half a decade or so, especially
with an old friend and a trusted one. No need for going far back with
the legend. You know it all up to the time I was married. You dined with
me once or twice later. You remember my wife? Certainly she was a
pretty woman, well bred, too, and wise, in a woman's way. I've seen a
good deal of the world, but I don't know that I ever saw a more tactful
entertainer, or in private a more adorable woman when she chose to be
affectionate. I was in that fool's paradise which is so big and holds so
many people, sometimes for a year and a half after marriage. Then one
day I found myself outside the wall.

"There was a beautiful set to my wife's chin, you may recollect--a
trifle strong for a woman; but I used to say to myself that, as students
know, the mother most impresses the male offspring, and that my sons
would be men of will. There was a fullness to her lips. Well, so there
is to mine. There was a delicious, languorous craft in the look of her
eyes at times. I cared not at all for that. I thought she loved me and
knew me. Love of me would give all faithfulness; knowledge of me, even
were the inclination to wrong existent, would beget a dread of
consequences. My dear boy, we don't know women. Sometimes women don't
know men. She did not know me any more than she loved me. She has bec