e, "has it come to that? That alters the case
completely. I will take myself off, then! I will get out of your way!
Had I suspected the existence of one drop of real affection in your
heart towards the man you are about to marry, I would have cut off
this right hand of mine rather than come here to-night. In coming I
was sustained by the belief that I would not defraud my friend--not in
reality--not of any thing he could value; not of a wife, but of an
empty casket. This belief, on my part, is all that redeems my coming
from being an act of diabolism. And now it turns out that there is a
very good reason why the bridal cake cannot be thrown to the dogs, and
the bridal robes cannot be committed to the flames, and the bridal
guests cannot upon any account be robbed of their bride upon the
morrow--_you could be happy with him if it were not for me!_"

Bitter in tone was this repetition of her words--words which wounded
him so keenly. They were calculated to wound the tender sensibilities
of any lover, most of all a lover of Jerome Devonhough's stamp. He
could condone any weakness on her part, except that which touched his
own dominion over her--the sceptre of his love, the yoke of his power.
Under a pacific exterior, there seethed in Jerome, volcanic masses of
self-will and unchangeable purpose; hemmed in, held in bounds, seldom
breaking forth in violent eruption, but always there. He was totally
unprepared for any change in the feelings of the woman upon whom he
had lavished the arbitrary tenderness of his own strong nature.
Jerome, you perceive, is no more of a hero than Mell is a heroine. He
is the counterpart of the man who lives round the corner, who sits
next you in church, whom you meet not unfrequently at your friend's
house at dinner. This man loves his wife, not because she is an
artistic production, elaborately wrought out in broad, mellow,
triumphant lines, grand in character, but rather because he recognizes
good material in her for his own moulding. We must never approach the
contemplation of any man's requirements in a wife with our minds full
of loose generalities. There is so much of the fool in every man, the
wisest man, who falls in love. He falls in love, not so much with what
is ideally lovable in a woman, but what is practically complemental to
his own nature. Jerome, being strong, loved Mell, who was weak, and
weak in those very places where Jerome was strong. She needed him. He
felt that he was a ne