n grown to manhood,--the sole heir to my
name,--think of him as having but one thing to blush for--the memory of
his dishonored mother!"

"Cruel--cruel!" she cried, endeavoring to check her sobs, and
withdrawing her hands from her face. "Why do you say such things to me?
Why did you marry me?"

He caught her hands and held them in a fast grip.

"Why? Because I loved you, Clara--loved you with all the tenderness of a
strong man's heart! When I first saw you, you seemed to me the very
incarnation of maiden purity and loveliness! The days of our
courtship--the first few months of our marriage--what they were to you,
I know not,--to me they were supreme happiness. When our boy was born,
my adoration, my reverence for you increased--you were so sacred in my
eyes, that I could have knelt and asked a benediction from these little
hands"--here he gently loosened them from his clasp. "Then came the
change--_what_ changed you, I cannot imagine--it has always seemed to me
unnatural, monstrous, incredible! There was no falling away in _my_
affection, that I can swear! My curse upon the man who turned your heart
from mine! So rightful and deep a curse is it that I feel it must some
day strike home."

He paused and seemed to reflect. "Who is there more vile, more
traitorous than he?" he went on. "Has he not tried to influence
Errington's wife against her husband? For what base purpose? But
Clara,--he is powerless against _her_ purity and innocence;--what, in
the name of God, gave him power over _you_?"

She drooped her head, and the hot blood rushed to her face.

"You've said enough!" she murmured sullenly. "If you have decided on a
divorce, pray carry out your intention with the least possible delay. I
cannot talk any more! I--I am tired!"

"Clara," said her husband solemnly, with a strange light in his eyes, "I
would rather kill you than divorce you!"

There was something so terribly earnest in his tone that her heart beat
fast with fear.

"Kill me?--kill me?" she gasped, with white lips.

"Yes!" he repeated, "kill you,--as a Frenchman or an Italian would,--and
take the consequences. Yes--though an Englishman, I would rather do this
than drag your frail poor womanhood through the mire of public scandal!
I have, perhaps, a strange nature, but such as I am, I am. There are too
many of our high-born families already, flaunting their immorality and
low licentiousness in the face of the mocking, grinning populace,--I for
on