y the mere
exercise of his right to disappear he gave the gods many lashes with
which to arm the furies against her. He was satisfied with being
beyond her reach forever. Now that he knew just what to do, now that
with his plan had come release from depression, now that he was himself
again almost, he felt that he could meet Sonia Westfield and act the
part of a busy husband without being tempted to strangle her. In her
very presence he would put in motion the machinery which would strip her
of luxury and himself of his present place in the world.

The process took about two months. The first step was a visit to
Monsignor O'Donnell, a single visit, and the first result was a single
letter, promptly committed to the flames. Then he went home with a story
of illness, of a business enterprise which had won his fancy, of
necessary visits to the far west; which were all true, but not in the
sense in which Sonia took these details. They not only explained his
absence, but also excused the oddity of his present behavior. He hardly
knew how he behaved with her. He did not act, nor lose self-confidence.
He had no desire to harm her. He was simply indifferent, as if from
sickness. As the circumstances fell in with her inclinations, though she
could not help noticing his new habits and peculiarities, she made no
protest and very little comment. He saw her rarely, and in time carried
himself with a sardonic good humor as surprising to him as inexplicable
to her. She seemed as far from him as if she had suddenly turned Eskimo.
Once or twice a sense of loathing invaded him, a flame of hatred blazed
up, soon suppressed. He was complete master of himself, and his reward
was that he could be her judge, with the indifference of a dignitary of
the law. The disposal of his property was accomplished with perfect
secrecy, his wife consenting on the plea of a better investment.

So the two months came to an end in peace, and he stood at last before
that door which he himself had opened into the new future. Once closed
no other hand but his could open it. A time might come when even to his
hand the hinge would not respond. Two persons knew his secret in part,
the Monsignor and a woman; but they knew nothing more than that he did
not belong to them from the beginning, and more than that they would
never know, if he carried out his plan of disappearance perfectly.
Whatever the result, he felt now that the crisis of his life had come.

At the l