The myriad agonies he was enduring now, agonies so various and great that he knew Hell had none greater, these, even these were alleviated by the wonder of his wife's love.
The terrible remorse that was knocking at his heart could not undo that.
He clung to her.
"Tell me all about it, Robert. I will forgive you, whatever you have done. I have long ago forgiven everything in my heart. There are only the words to say."
She rested her worn, tired head on his shoulder. The sunbeams gave it a glory.
Again the man must suffer a terrible agony. She had asked him to tell her all his trouble in a voice full of gentle pleading.
Whose voice did her voice recall to him; what fatal hour? A coarser voice, a richer voice, trembling, so he had thought, with love for him.
"Tell me everything, Bob!" It was Gertrude's voice.
The day of his undoing! The day when his horrid secret was wrested from him by the levers of his own passions. The day which had brought him to this. Finis coronat opus!
But the agony within him was the agony of contrast.