"It was the merest farce, but Queenie thought she was my legal wife.
"She would not have gone with me else. She was as pure and innocent as an angel."
He paused a moment, but he did not look up. He could not bear to meet the tiger glare in the eyes of the man before him. Clearing his throat nervously, he continued:
"I lived with her a year, and then we mutually wearied of each other.
"Her keen intuition soon showed her that she had been deceived in me, and that I was far different from the ideal which she had placed on a lofty pedestal and worshiped for awhile as a god among men.
"She scorned me then, and I hated her because she had found me out. In my rage I told her the truth, and then I tried to kill her."
"My God!" Captain Ernscliffe muttered, clenching his hands as though he would have torn the villain limb from limb.
"I thought I had killed her," pursued Vinton. "I strangled her with both my hands.
"I threw her down and trampled upon her beautiful face that had been her ruin.