her arms towards him, and sank unconscious into his strong grasp; and
thus he bore her to the house, kissing her face, while tears streamed
down his cheeks.

An Uncommon View of It

Mr. Clarke Randolph was stupefied by a discovery which he had just
made--his wife had proved unfaithful, and the betrayer was his nearest
friend, Henry Stockton. If there had been the least chance for a doubt,
the unhappy husband would have seized upon it, but there was none
whatever.

Let us try to understand what this meant to such a man as Randolph. He
was a high-bred, high-spirited man of thirty, descended from a long
line of proud and chivalrous men; educated, refined, sensitive,
generous, and brave. His fine talents, his dash, his polished manner,
his industry, his integrity, his loftiness of character, had lifted him
upon the shoulders of popularity and prosperity; so that, in the city
of his home, there was not another man of his age, a member of his
profession, the law, who was so well known, so well liked, or wielded
such a power.

He had been married four years. His wife was beautiful, winning, and
intelligent; and she had always had from him the best devotion that a
husband could give his wife. He and Stockton had been friends for many
years. Next to his wife, Randolph had loved and trusted him above all
others.

Such was the situation. At one stroke he had lost his wife, his home,
his best friend, his confidence in human nature, his spirit, his
ambition. These--and essentially they were all that made up his life,
except the operation of purely animal functions--had gone all at once
without a moment's warning.

Well, there was something to be done. A keen sense of the betrayal, a
smarting under the gross humiliation, urged him to the natural course
of revenge. This, as he sat crouched down in a chair in his locked
office, he began systematically to prepare. The first idea--always
first in such cases--was to kill. That, in the case of a man of his
spirit and temperament, was a matter of course. Fear of the legal
consequences found no place within him. Besides, suicide after the
killing would settle that exceedingly small part of the difficulty.

So it was first decided that as the result of this discovery three
persons had to die,--his wife, his friend, and himself. Very well; that
took a load from his mind. An orderly and intelligent arrangement of
details now had to be worked out. A plan which would bring the la