The outraged husband was alone once more, the red glow of the sunset shining into the room and touching with its tender warmth his pallid, marble-like features.
He could not rest. Mr. Lyle's words re-echoed in his ears, turning his warm blood to an icy current that flowed sluggishly through his benumbed veins.
"In a month she may be in her grave—oh! the horror of that thought," he said, aloud.
Yes, it was horror. He thought he hated her—she had deceived him so bitterly—he thought he was anxious to sever the tie that bound them together; he thought he never wished to look upon her beautiful, false face again.
And yet, and yet those words of Mr. Lyle's staggered him. He reeled beneath the suddenness of the blow. He asked himself again as he had asked Mr. Lyle:
"What is this mysterious illness that holds her in its chains?"
He did not know, he did not dream of the truth. If he had known it, he must surely have forgiven her and taken her back. He could not have hated her longer, even though she had sinned and deceived him. For he had loved her very dearly, and she was his wife.
But he said to himself:
"Why should I care if she dies? She deceived me shamefully. She can never be anything to me again. In either case, as that old man said, I shall be free. What will it matter to me, then, if she be dead or alive; I shall never see her again!"