mad;--mad though every doctor in England had
called him sane. Had he not been mad he must have been a fiend,--or
he could not have tortured, as he had done, the woman to whom he owed
the closest protection which one human being can give to another.

During these last days and nights she never left him. She had done
her duty to him well, at any rate since the time when she had been
enabled to come near him in Italy. It may be that in the first days
of their quarrel, she had not been regardful, as she should have
been, of a husband's will,--that she might have escaped this tragedy
by submitting herself to the man's wishes, as she had always been
ready to submit herself to his words. Had she been able always to
keep her neck in the dust under his foot, their married life might
have been passed without outward calamity, and it is possible that
he might still have lived. But if she erred, surely she had been
scourged for her error with scorpions. As she sat at his bedside
watching him, she thought of her wasted youth, of her faded beauty,
of her shattered happiness, of her fallen hopes. She had still her
child,--but she felt towards him that she herself was so sad a
creature, so sombre, so dark, so necessarily wretched from this time
forth till the day of her death, that it would be better for the boy
that she should never be with him. There could be nothing left for
her but garments dark with woe, eyes red with weeping, hours sad from
solitude, thoughts weary with memory. And even yet,--if he would only
now say that he did not believe her to have been guilty, how great
would be the change in her future life!

Then came an evening in which he seemed to be somewhat stronger than
he had been. He had taken some refreshment that had been prepared
for him, and, stimulated by its strength, had spoken a word or two
both to Nora and to his wife. His words had been of no especial
interest,--alluding to some small detail of his own condition, such
as are generally the chosen topics of conversation with invalids.
But he had been pronounced to be better, and Nora spoke to him
cheerfully, when he was taken into the next room by the man who
was always at hand to move him. His wife followed him, and soon
afterwards returned, and bade Nora good night. She would sit by her
husband, and Nora was to go to the room below, that she might receive
her lover there. He was expected out that evening, but Mrs. Trevelyan
said that she would not see