hey get
together and laugh at me; they giggle; they snicker--"

"Confound it all, man, what are you going on at that rate for?"
interrupted Hawbury. "Are you taking leave of your senses altogether?
By Jove, old man, you'd better give up this Roman journey."

"No, I'll keep at it."

"What for? Confound it! I don't see your object."

"My object? Why, I mean to follow her. I can't give her up. I won't
give her up. I'll follow her. She shall see me every where. I'll
follow her. She sha'n't go any where without seeing me on her track.
She shall see that she is mine. She shall know that she's got a
master. She shall find herself cut off from that butterfly life which
she hopes to enter. I'll be her fate, and she shall know it."

"By Jove!" cried Hawbury. "What the deuce is all this about? Are you
mad, or what? Look here, old boy, you're utterly beyond me, you know.
What the mischief do you mean? Whom are you going to follow? Whose
fate are you going to be? Whose track are you talking about?"

"Who?" cried Dacres. "Why, my wife!"

As he said this he struck his fist violently on the table.

"The deuce!" exclaimed Hawbury, staring at him; after which he added,
thoughtfully, "by Jove!"

Not much more was said. Dacres sat in silence for a long time,
breathing hard, and puffing violently at his cigar. Hawbury said
nothing to interrupt his meditation. After an hour or so Dacres
tramped off in silence, and Hawbury was left to meditate over the
situation.

And this was the result of his meditations.

He saw that Dacres was greatly excited, and had changed completely
from his old self. His state of mind seemed actually dangerous. There
was an evil gleam in his eyes that looked like madness. What made it
more perplexing still was the new revulsion of feeling that now was
manifest. It was not so much love for the child-angel as bitter and
venomous hate for his wife. The gentler feeling had given place to the
sterner one. It might have been possible to attempt an argument
against the indulgence of the former; but what could words avail
against revenge? And now there was rising in the soul of Dacres an
evident thirst for vengeance, the result of those injuries which had
been carried in his heart and brooded over for years. The sight of his
wife had evidently kindled all this. If she had not come across his
path he might have forgotten all; but she had come, and all was
revived. She had come, too, in a shape which was adapted