t with stain of blood;
these relics appealed to his emotions. Under glass were ranged minutiae
such as bullets, fragments of shells, bits of gore-drenched cloth or
linen, a splinter of human bone--all ticketed with neat inscription. A
bookcase contained volumes of military history, works on firearms,
treatises on (chiefly explosive) chemistry; several great portfolios
were packed with maps and diagrams of warfare. Upstairs, a long garret
served as laboratory, and here were ranged less valuable possessions;
weapons to which some doubt attached, unbloody scraps of accoutrements,
also a few models of cannon and the like.

In society, Hannaford was an entertaining, sometimes a charming, man,
with a flow of well-informed talk, of agreeable anecdote; his friends
liked to have him at the dinner-table; he could never be at a loss for
a day or two's board and lodging when his home wearied him. Under his
own roof he seldom spoke save to find fault, rarely showed anything but
acrid countenance. He and his wife were completely alienated; but for
their child, they would long ago have parted. It had been a love match,
and the daughter's name, Olga, still testified to the romance of their
honeymoon; but that was nearly twenty years gone by, and of these at
least fifteen had been spent in discord, concealed or flagrant. Mrs.
Hannaford was something of an artist; her husband spoke of all art with
contempt--except the great art of human slaughter. She liked the
society of foreigners; he, though a remarkable linguist, at heart
distrusted and despised all but English-speaking folk. As a girl in her
teens, she had been charmed by the man's virile accomplishments, his
soldierly bearing and gay talk of martial things, though Hannaford was
only a teacher of science. Nowadays she thought with dreary wonder of
that fascination, and had come to loathe every trapping and habiliment
of war. She knew him profoundly selfish, and recognised the other
faults which had hindered so clever a man from success in life;
indolent habits, moral untrustworthiness, and a conceit which at times
menaced insanity. He hated her, she was well aware, because of her cold
criticism; she returned his hate with interest.

Save in suicide, of which she had sometimes thought, Mrs. Hannaford saw
but one hope of release. A sister of hers had married a rich American,
and was now a widow in falling health. That sister's death might
perchance endow her with the means of liberty