ked for. It is this: your wife has
become like a child again--occupied contentedly and quite happily with
childish things. She has forgotten much; her memory is quite gone. How
much she does remember it is impossible to say."

His head fell; his brooding eyes were fixed again on the rug at his
feet. After a while he looked up.

"It is pitiful, Mr. Ruthven--she is so young--with all her physical
charm and attraction quite unimpaired. But the mind is gone--quite gone,
sir. Some sudden strain--and the tension has been great for years--some
abrupt overdraft upon her mental resource, perhaps; God knows how it
came--from sorrow, from some unkindness too long endured--"

Again he relapsed into his study of the rug; and slowly, warily, Ruthven
lifted his little, inflamed eyes to look at him, then moistened his dry
lips with a thick-coated tongue, and stole a glance at the locked door.

"I understand," said Selwyn, looking up suddenly, "that you are
contemplating proceedings against your wife. Are you?"

Ruthven made no reply.

"_Are_ you?" repeated Selwyn. His face had altered; a dim glimmer played
in his eyes like the reflection of heat lightning at dusk.

"Yes, I am," said Ruthven.

"On the grounds of her mental incapacity?"

"Yes."

"Then, as I understand it, the woman whom you persuaded to break every
law, human and divine, for your sake, you now propose to abandon. Is
that it?"

Ruthven made no reply.

"You propose to publish her pitiable plight to the world by beginning
proceedings; you intend to notify the public of your wife's infirmity by
divorcing her."

"Sane or insane," burst out Ruthven, "she was riding for a fall--and
she's going to get it! What the devil are you talking about? I'm not
accountable to you. I'll do what I please; I'll manage my own affairs--"

"No," said Selwyn, "I'll manage this particular affair. And now I'll
tell you how I'm going to do it. I have in my lodgings--or rather in the
small hall bedroom which I now occupy--an army service revolver, in
fairly good condition. The cylinder was a little stiff this morning when
I looked at it, but I've oiled it with No. 27--an excellent rust solvent
and lubricant, Mr. Ruthven--and now the cylinder spins around in a
manner perfectly trustworthy. So, as I was saying, I have this very
excellent and serviceable weapon, and shall give myself the pleasure of
using it on you if you ever commence any such action for divorce or
separation against