it, he felt his first
blind instinct for violent action give place to a kind of emotional
chaos, in which he could barely hear the thunder of his own thoughts. He
knew neither what he believed nor what he suffered; his power to will
and his power to think were alike suspended, and he was conscious only
of a curious deadness of sensation, amid which his ironic devil,
standing apart, asked with surprise why he did not suffer more--why his
anger was not the greater, his restraint the less? His philosophy, at
the moment, had turned to quicksand beneath his feet; and it was this
utter failure of himself which forced upon him the anguish of
readjustment, the frenzied striving after a clearer mental vision. As he
hurried breathlessly along the narrow, dimly lighted street into which
he had turned, he felt instinctively that he was groping blindly for
some way back into his former illumination, for some finer knowledge of
spirit, which at present he did not appear to possess. Not to act upon
brute impulse, but to listen in agony until he heard the voice of reason
above the storm of his passion--until he heard the soul speaking beyond
the senses--this was the one urgent need he felt himself to be aware
of--the one intelligent purpose that remained with him through his
flight.

"No--I have failed and it is all over," was the first distinct thought
that he framed. "By her own act she has put the last barrier between us.
She is my wife no longer, for, through herself, she has brought disgrace
upon us both." Again he remembered the sacrifices he had made for her,
not with the generous rejoicing of the morning, but with a fierce
bitterness which was like a bodily hurt. "She is no longer my wife," he
repeated; "nor am I her husband--for by her own sin she has made me
free." Yet the word carried no conviction to his conscience, and he
knew, in spite of his assurance, that nothing had happened since
yesterday to change the relations between Connie and himself--that if he
had pitied her then there was only the double reason why he should pity
her now. Had this added wrong made her less helpless? had it put moral
fibre into her heart? "All this had happened yesterday--had happened
even six months ago, yet last night I sat by her bed--I was filled with
sympathy--and was it only because I was in ignorance then of something
which I know now? Yesterday I sacrificed for her both my rest and my
work, but was she worthier of pity at that hour th