you and received your fire;
you shot him through the chest,--not mortally, it is true, but to carry
to his grave a painful, lingering disease. To have insisted on his again
meeting you would have been little less than murder. No man could have
stood your friend in such a quarrel. I told you so then, I repeat it
now, _he_ could not fire at you; what, then, was it possible for you to
do?"

"Shoot him,--shoot him like a dog!" cried Glencore, while his eyes
gleamed like the glittering eyes of an enraged beast. "You talk of his
lingering life of pain: think of _mine_; have some sympathy for what _I_
suffer! Would all the agony of _his_ whole existence equal one hour of
the torment he has bequeathed to me, its shame and ignominy?"

"These are things which passion can never treat of, my dear Glencore."

"Passion alone can feel them," said the other, sternly. "Keep subtleties
for those who use like weapons. As for me, no casuistry is needed
to tell me I am dishonored, and just as little to tell me I must be
avenged! If _you_ think differently, it were better not to discuss this
question further between us; but I did think I could have reckoned upon
you, for I felt you had barred my first chance of a vengeance."

"Now, then, for your plan, Glencore," said Upton, who, with all the
dexterity of his calling, preferred opening a new channel in the
discussion, to aggravating difficulties by a further opposition.

"I must rid myself of her! There's my plan!" cried Glencore, savagely.
"You have it all in that resolution. Of no avail is it that I have
separated my fortune from hers, so long as she bears my name, and
renders it infamous in every city of Europe. Is it to _you_, who live in
the world,--who mix with men of every country,--that I need tell this?
If a man cannot throw off such a shame, he must sink under it."

"But you told me you had an unconquerable aversion to the notion of
seeking a divorce."

"So I had; so I have! The indelicate, the ignominious course of a trial
at law, with all its shocking exposure, would be worse than a thousand
deaths! To survive the suffering of all the licensed ribaldry of some
gowned coward aspersing one's honor, calumniating, inventing, and,
when invention failed, suggesting motives, the very thought of which in
secret had driven a man to madness! To endure this--to read it--to
know it went published over the wide globe, till one's shame became the
gossip of millions--and then--with a ver