The Press., 1894-11-01

| When Francis, Armour left his wife's room. he did not go to his own room, but quietly descended the stairs, went to the library and sat down. The lone- Hest thing in the world is to be tete-a- tete with one's conscience A man may have bad hour with an enemy, a sad hour with a friend. peaceful hour with himself, but when the little dwarf, conscience. perches upon every hillock of remembrance and makes slow signs those symbols of the language of the soul-to him, no slave upon the tread mill suffers more. The butler came in to see if anything was required, but Armour only greeted him silently and waved him away. His brain was painfully alert, his memory singularly awake. It seemed that the in
 cident of this hour had so opened up every channel of his intelligence that all his life ran past him ill fantastic panorama
 as by that illumination which comes to the drowning man. He seemed under some strange spell Once or twice he rose, rubbed his eyes and looked round | the rOom-the room where, as a boy, | he had spent idle hours, where, as a student, he had been ill the hands of his tutor, and as young man had found recreations such as belong to ambitious and ardent youth. Every corner was fa- miliar. Nothing was changed. The books upon the shelves were as they were placed 20 years ago. And yet he did not seem part of it. It did not seem natural to him. He was in an at mosphere of strangeness-tha atmos- phere which surrounds a man, as by cloud, when some crisis comes upon him, and his life seems to stand still, whirling upon it's marrow base, while the world appears at an interminable distance, even as to deaf man who sees, yet cannot hear.
 There came home to him at that mo- ment, with force indescribable, the shamelessness of the act he committed four years ago. He had thought to come back to miserable humiliation. For four years he had refused to do his duty as a man toward an innocent woman, a woman, though in part savage, now transformed into gentle, noble creature of delight and goodness. How had he deserved it? He had sown the storm; it was but just that he should reap the whirlwind He had scattered thistles; could he expect to gather grapes? He knew that the sympathy of all his fa- ther's house was not with him, but with the woman he had wronged. He was glad it was so.
 Looking back now, it seemed so poor and paltry a thing that he, man, should stoop to revenge himself upon those who had given him birth as kind of insult to the woman who had lightly set him aside and should use for that purpose helpless confding girl. To revenge ones self for wrong to ones self is but common passion, which has little dignity; to avenge some one whom one has loved, man or woman- and before all, woman-has some touch of nobility, is redeemed by loyalty. For his act there was not one word of de- fense to be made, and he was not pre- pared to make it.
 The cigars and liquors were beside him, but he did not touch them. He seemed very far away from the ordinary details of his life. He knew he had be- fore him hard travel, and he was not confident of the end. He could not tell how long he sat there. After time the ticking of the clock seemed painfully loud to him. Now and again he heard a cab rattling through the square, and the foolish song of some drunken lo1tere1 i'll the night caused him to start pain fully. Everything jared on him. Once he got up, went to the window aud looked out. The moon was shining full on the square. He wondered if it would be we'll for him to go out and find some quiet to his nerves ill walking He did so. Out ill the square he looked up tc his wife's window. It was lighted. Long time he walked up and down, his eyes on the window. It held him like charm. Once he leaned against the iron railings of the garden and looked up, not moving for a time. Presently he saw the curtain of the window raised, and against the dim light of the room was outlined the figure of his wife. He knew it. She stood for moment look ing out into the night. She could not see him, nor could he see her features at all plainly, but he knew that she, like him, was alone with the catastrophe which his Wickedness' had sent upon her. Soon the curtain was drawn down again, and then he went once more. to the house and took his old seat beside the table. He fell to brooding and at