At last Alan went to bed, and his father shut himself up in his laboratory and tried to work out some structural formulæ in connection with certain experimental data he had obtained. But his mental serenity had been disturbed by his wife's return, and he was disheartened by the loss of the result of his work. That was only one of the many times when Marianne had burst into the laboratory and spoilt his experiments, and he was annoyed with himself for not having remembered to turn the key and thus secure himself from an unwelcome intrusion. He struggled some time with conflicting thoughts, but eventually came into his study and drew his chair up to the fire; for it was a cold September night. He sat there staring at the fire, and his mind wandered back to his happy student days under Bayer in Munich, and Hofmann in Berlin, when everything seemed possible to him because his mind was free from harassment. He glanced at Hofmann's portrait, which was hanging over the mantelpiece, and he heard once more the man's genial voice, and felt the charm of his genial presence. A thrill of pleasure and enthusiasm passed through him. For three years he had studied with Hofmann, and had finally become his private assistant, only leaving him to take over the Professorship of Chemistry at Aberystwith College, a post which he held for two years. Then his father, a mining engineer, died, leaving him a considerable fortune; and he was thus able to devote himself entirely to research work, his subjects being the study of stereo-isomeric compounds, and syntheses amongst the vegetable alkaloids. It was during his last year at Berlin that he had met and married Marianne Dacre, the beautiful daughter of a widowed Englishwoman keeping an English boarding-house in the German capital. When his father died, they settled down with their little son at "Falun," and from that moment until this very evening, happiness had been a stranger to the home. Yet the man was made for happiness. He would have been glad enough to love and be loved. But he had, of his own free will, chosen badly, and he had to pay the penalty. And he paid it with all the chivalry and kindness which were part of his nature. But the moment had come when he realised that he had paid enough, and as he sat there, half-musing, half-dozing, he said:
"I have paid enough. I can and will pay no more."
And suddenly he fell asleep from sheer mental exhaustion, and he dreamed. He dreamed that he was telling his wife all his locked inmost thoughts of her. He had kept them controlled so long and so sternly, that now they came tumbling out with reckless abandonment.
"You have never known me for what I am," he said passionately. "You have spoiled my life, my spirit, and ruined my best talents. I tell you I had talents before you came and trampled on them. Listen to me. If ever a man has been spiritually murdered, it is I. But now the barrier of silence has broken down, and I dare to tell you what in my inmost heart I really think of you. I dare to tell you that I despise your paltry mind and petty temperament; that your atmosphere is an insult to me, and that I long and thirst and am starved to be free from the pressure of your daily presence. You have been merciless to me with your uncontrolled rages, your insane jealousies of me, my work, my ambitions, and my friends. I can bear it all no longer. The day on which we go our own ways, will be the day of my re-birth. And that day shall be to-morrow—now—even now. No, no, don't begin to argue with me, Marianne. There is nothing you can say to me either about yourself or the boy that could alter my determination. We have delayed too long already, and the precious years are passing. Sixteen wasted years—oh, the hopeless folly of them, and leading to what? No, no, I'll listen to no more arguments—there is no sense in this continued penance. We must and shall part to-morrow; no, no—now—this moment—ah, at last, at last—freedom at last!"
He awoke and looked around his quiet study.
"Ah," he said, "it was a dream. I am glad, in spite of everything, that it was a dream. I am glad that I did not say those things to her in reality. The look of pain and astonishment on her face would have haunted me all my life."
He shuddered.
"It was horrible," he said. "Poor Marianne, poor Marianne! You must not know the truth which kills. Poor Marianne! We must pick up the bits to-morrow—somehow."
Then he turned down the lights, and went upstairs. His wife's door was open, and he heard her voice calling him.