, as though he was in a
miserable dream. He looked again; he could not recognise himself.

He then bundled the letters and papers into his despatch-box. His
attention was drawn to one letter. He picked it up. It was from Richard.
He started to break the seal, but paused. The strain of the event was
too much; he winced. He determined not to read it then, to wait until he
had recovered himself. He laughed now painfully. It had been better
for him--it had, maybe, averted what people were used to term his
tragedy--had he read his brother's letter at that moment. For Richard
Armour was a sensible man, notwithstanding his peculiarities; and
perhaps the most sensible words he ever wrote were in that letter
thrust unceremoniously into Frank Armour's pocket. Armour had received a
terrible blow. He read his life backwards. He had no future. The liquor
he had drunk had not fevered him, it had not wildly excited him; it
merely drew him up to a point where he could put a sudden impulse
into practice without flinching. He was bitter against his people;
he credited them with more interference than was actual. He felt that
happiness had gone out of his life and left him hopeless. As we said, he
was a man of quick decisions. He would have made a dashing but reckless
soldier; he was not without the elements of the gamester. It is possible
that there was in him also a strain of cruelty, undeveloped but radical.
Life so far had evolved the best in him; he had been cheery and candid.
Now he travelled back into new avenues of his mind and found strange,
aboriginal passions, fully adapted to the present situation. Vulgar
anger and reproaches were not after his nature. He suddenly found
sources of refined but desperate retaliation. He drew upon them. He
would do something to humiliate his people and the girl who had spoiled
his life. Some one thing! It should be absolute and lasting, it should
show how low had fallen his opinion of women, of whom Julia Sherwood had
once been chiefest to him. In that he would show his scorn of her. He
would bring down the pride of his family, who, he believed, had helped,
out of mere selfishness, to tumble his happiness into the shambles.

He was older by years than an hour ago. But he was not without the
faculty of humour; that was why he did not become very excited; it was
also why he determined upon a comedy which should have all the elements
of tragedy. Perhaps, however, he would have hesitated to carry his