abric of his behavior, with the
utmost absence and nonchalance. He had, it seemed, been too long in
contempt to recover soon his former position of husband and beloved. For
long days she had contemplated his naked soul, limited, weak, incapable.
He had shown a certain capacity for sudden, explosive temper, but not
for courage of any kind, or force. Nor had he played the gentleman in
his helplessness. Nor had I. We had not in us the stuff of heroes; at
first sight of instruments of torture we were of those who would confess
to anything, abjure, swear falsely, beg for mercy, change our so-called
religions--anything. The bride had learned to despise us from the bottom
of her heart. She despised us still. And I would have staked my last
dollar, or, better, my hopes of escaping from Farallone, that as man and
wife she and the groom would never live together again. I felt terribly
sorry for the groom. He had, as had I, been utterly inefficient,
helpless, babyish, and cowardly--yet the odds against us had seemed
overwhelming. But now as we journeyed down the river, and the distance
between us and Farallone grew more, I kept thinking of men whom I had
known; men physically weaker than the groom and I, who, had Farallone
offered to bully them, would have fought him and endured his torture
till they died. In my immediate past, then, there was nothing of which I
was not burningly ashamed, and in the not-too-distant future I hoped to
separate from the bride and the groom, and never see them or hear of
them in this world again. At that, I had a real affection for the bride,
a real admiration. On the yacht, before trouble showed me up, we had
bid fair to become fast and enduring friends. But that was all over--a
bud, nipped by the frost of conduct and circumstance, or ever the fruit
could so much as set. For many days now I had avoided her eye; I had
avoided addressing her; I had exerted my ingenuity to keep out of her
sight. It is a terrible thing for a man to be thrown daily into the
society of a woman who has found him out, and who despises him, mind,
soul, marrow, and bone.

The stream broke at length from the forest and, swelled by a sizable
tributary, flowed broad and deep into a rolling, park-like landscape.
Grass spread over the country's undulations and looked in the distance
like well-kept lawns; and at wide intervals splendidly grown live-oaks
lent an effect of calculated planting. Here our flight, for our muscles
were har