"She would have married you. She thinks nobody like you," he began again.
"I tell you I never thought of her as my wife. What possesses you, Green, to speak to me in this absurd fashion?"
"Jealousy—revenge," he hissed, and I could just perceive him playing with something which looked disagreeably like a knife.
This was serious, and unseen by him—he seemed absorbed in thought—I took measures to descend as rapidly as possible. There was no disguising the fact that I was in a balloon alone with a madman!
"We will make for the sea," he muttered to himself. "One thrust, and over he goes."
"Not if I know it," I thought. "There will be a little discussion before that undesirable end is attained."
"Was woman ever loved so much before?" he began, speaking to himself. "For her I was ready to sacrifice my present, my future, my hereafter, my life; nothing that a man could do would have been left undone for one approving smile, one kiss from her pouting lips.
"Ah! to think that other lips have pressed hers, that other arms have encircled that matchless form, drives me mad—mad! Yet she looks an angel of purity. How often have I stayed awake to watch the childlike sleep. No impure thought was haunting the quiet mind. If she had but whispered the name of a rival she would never have risen from the couch again. But that letter—ah! that letter. I have it here; it speaks of secret meetings, and calls me—the fiend—the duped, or complaisant husband. And the letter was not wrong. I watched them meet secretly myself. Oh! Lizzie, was such a love as mine to be thrown away like a used glove? Would to God we had never met. No, I won't say that. I cannot forget the days of rapture I spent with you, my darling. It is not you I blame; it is he, the husband's friend, I must destroy. Time for action. This good knife will revenge my lost honour. No man shall boast that he has kissed those lips and live. Now we will make for the sea, and then one thrust and over he goes!"
He was right in saying it was the moment for action. He had worked himself into such a mad fury I expected every moment to be attacked. All the time he was raving the balloon was—unknown to him—rapidly descending, and we were close to the earth, so close that by throwing out the grappling irons I made certain of stopping our further progress, and it was not a bit too soon.