do you mean by . . ." he began, then checked himself, and without
waiting for an answer went on, "I won't ask any questions. Is this
letter the worst of it?"

She had a nervous movement of her hands.

"I must have a plain answer," he said, hotly.

"Then, no! The worst is my coming back."

There followed a period of dead silence, during which they exchanged
searching glances.

He said authoritatively--

"You don't know what you are saying. Your mind is unhinged. You are
beside yourself, or you would not say such things. You can't control
yourself. Even in your remorse . . ." He paused a moment, then said with
a doctoral air: "Self-restraint is everything in life, you know. It's
happiness, it's dignity . . . it's everything."

She was pulling nervously at her handkerchief while he went on watching
anxiously to see the effect of his words. Nothing satisfactory happened.
Only, as he began to speak again, she covered her face with both her
hands.

"You see where the want of self-restraint leads to.
Pain--humiliation--loss of respect--of friends, of everything that
ennobles life, that . . . All kinds of horrors," he concluded, abruptly.

She made no stir. He looked at her pensively for some time as though he
had been concentrating the melancholy thoughts evoked by the sight of
that abased woman. His eyes became fixed and dull. He was profoundly
penetrated by the solemnity of the moment; he felt deeply the greatness
of the occasion. And more than ever the walls of his house seemed
to enclose the sacredness of ideals to which he was about to offer a
magnificent sacrifice. He was the high priest of that temple, the severe
guardian of formulas, of rites, of the pure ceremonial concealing the
black doubts of life. And he was not alone. Other men, too--the best of
them--kept watch and ward by the hearthstones that were the altars of
that profitable persuasion. He understood confusedly that he was part
of an immense and beneficent power, which had a reward ready for every
discretion. He dwelt within the invincible wisdom of silence; he was
protected by an indestructible faith that would last forever, that would
withstand unshaken all the assaults--the loud execrations of apostates,
and the secret weariness of its confessors! He was in league with a
universe of untold advantages. He represented the moral strength of a
beautiful reticence that could vanquish all the deplorable crudities of
life--fear, disaster, sin--even de