“De Crespigney, you must not say such false things about yourself. Think what the effect upon other minds may be.”
“They are not false; they are true. Listen to me, Dr. Prout. You know you warned me that excitement might prove fatal to my unhappy wife.”
“Yes.”
“You know how prone she was to excitement. You knew her delicate health and her extreme nervous irritability?”
“I knew the weakness of her lungs and the violence of her temper. I knew all that, Colonel de Crespigney, before you ever saw her face.”
“Let that pass,” said Marcel, waving his hand impatiently. “You warned me against the danger of excitement for her. I was not man enough to heed your warning in her behalf. I have been frenzied to-night, Dr. Prout. But attend! This evening I irritated her, excited, taunted, maddened, murdered her!”
“Oh, my dear Colonel. Oh, tut, tut, tut!”
“But hear me! I must tell some one. Oh, this necessity of confession—this afternoon a dispute arose between us, indeed I know not how—I should have calmed, soothed, conciliated her, knowing how dangerous was excitement to that poor, fragile being! But I did not. When she accused me, I recriminated; when she reproached me, I retorted. ‘One word brought on another,’ as the people say. She grew frantic and knew not what she said, I do verily believe. Yet her words stung me to frenzy, and, forgetting my manhood, I—I——”
Here Marcel de Crespigney’s voice broke, and he covered his brow with his hand and dropped his head upon his breast with a look of unutterable shame.
“You never could have raised your hand against your wife, De Crespigney?” exclaimed the doctor, in a harsh voice, and shrinking away from his companion.