earch of this old love before his wife had been
a week in her grave. He makes no secret of his relief. 'The sense that
I am free is turning my brain with joy,' he confesses.

'I say it because I feel it. I am aware that it is in very bad
taste, but that doesn't make it the less true. Do you suppose people
are never glad when their relations die? They are--very often; they
can't help it; only they pretend they are not, because it seems so
shocking. I don't pretend--at least, I need not pretend to you. The
fault is not always--not all--on the side of the survivors, Hannah.
I don't think I am any worse than those who pretend a grief that
they don't feel. I was never unkind to her--never in my life, that I
can remember. I did not kill her; I would have kept her alive as
long as I possibly could. I think--I hope--that if I could have
saved her by the sacrifice of my own life, I should have done it
without a single moment's hesitation.'

'I am sure you would,' said Hannah.

'But,' he continued, with that unwonted fire blazing in his eyes,
'since dead she is, I _am_ glad--I am, I am! I am glad as a man who
has been kept in prison is to be let out. It is not my fault; I
would be sorry if I could. Some day, Hannah--some day, when we have
been dust for a few hundred years--perhaps for a few score
only--people will wake up to see how stupid it is to drive a man to
be glad when his wife is dead. They are finding out so many things;
they will find that out too in time.'

Probably it will still appear to many that Delavel's admission was at
least indelicate and inconsistent with his chivalrous nature. It is not
here possible to convey an adequate impression of his fiery spirit, his
long heart-hunger, and the magnitude of the loss which a wholly
uncongenial marriage must ever mean to such a man. When the full story
of his life and that of his quietly 'implacable' wife is read, his
conduct seems natural and excusable. It is as much a part of himself as
the tremulous tenderness with which he ministers to the comfort of the
frail Constance Bethune, after finding and bringing her home, or as his
fierce grief when she dies.

Another very human spectacle that illustrates the author's method is the
reunion of Betty and Rutherford Ochiltree--the frank selfishness of
their mutual joy while the poor woman who had been an unconscious
barrier between them lie