That afternoon, for the first time in their married life, Ruth saw her husband drunk. He had stupified himself with brandy, and had fallen into a drunken sleep.
She had gone to him in his study to ask him a question, and there she found him dozing fitfully, with the empty bottle by his side.
He heard her footsteps, but did not recognize her. Without opening his eyes, he addressed her as though she was some one else.
He cursed her and called her horrible names. Then suddenly he leapt up, his bloodshot eyes starting from his head, and struggled with an imaginary foe.
‘It’s your own fault, curse you!’ he cried. ‘Drown, like the dog that you are!’ Then he fell back heavily into his chair, and Ruth, alarmed, rushed out and called for help.
He was in a fit.
The doctor came, and was astonished. ‘The brain is affected,’ he said. ‘Some terrible shock has unnerved him. He must be kept quite quiet and watched.’
That night Ruth sat and watched by the bedside of a delirious husband.
And in his delirium the horrible secrets of his life were told. Secrets so horrible, things so vile and unholy, that the woman who bore his name raised her despairing eyes to heaven, and cried to God passionately to close the madman’s self-condemning lips.