udder when informed that their
husbands had perpetrated a dishonest act in order to win them.'

"A thin strange smile heralded her reply. 'Most wives would,' returned
she, 'but most wives are ignorant. Did you suppose I did not know what
it cost you to marry me? Papa took care I should miss no knowledge that
might be useful to me.'

"'And you married me knowing what I had done!' exclaimed I, with
incredulous dismay.

"'I married you, knowing you were too clever, or believing you to be too
clever, to run such a risk again.'

"I can say no more concerning that hour. With a horror for this woman
such as I had never before experienced for living creature, I rushed out
of her presence, loathing the air she breathed, yet resolved to do her
bidding. Can you understand a man hating a woman, yet obeying her;
despising her, yet yielding? I cannot, _now_, but that day there seemed
no alternative. Either I must kill myself or follow her wishes. I chose
to do the latter, forgetting that God can kill, and that, too, whom and
when He pleases.

"Going down to the bank, I procured the bonds from my box in the safe. I
felt like a thief, and the manner in which it was done was unwittingly
suggestive of crime, but with that and the position in which I have
since found myself placed by this very action, I need not cumber my
present narrative. Handing the bonds to my agent with orders to sell
them to the best advantage, I took a short walk to quiet my nerves and
realize what I had done, and then went home.

"Paula, had God in his righteous anger seen fit to strike me down that
day, it would have been no more than my due and aroused in me, perhaps,
no more than a natural repentence. But when I saw her for whose sake I
had ostensibly committed this fresh abuse of trust, lying cold and dead
before me, the sword of the Almighty pierced me to the soul, and I fell
prostrate beneath a remorse to which any regret I had hitherto
experienced, was as the playing of a child with shadows. Had I by the
losing of my right arm been able to recall my action, I would have done
it; indeed I made an effort to recover myself; had my agent followed up
with an order to return me the bonds I had given him, but it was too
late, the compromise had already been effected by telegraph and the
money was out of our hands. The deed was done and I had made myself
unworthy of your presence and your smile at the very hour when both
would have been inestimable to me.