"'Nothing at all, my dear and unhappy friend. If you wish me to speak frankly, the idea had occurred to me that the lack of pleasure you took in your excellent wife might come from the possibly unconscious pleasure you took in someone else.'
"'Your imagination anticipates the facts. As you suspect, I have not finished my story. Since you call for an immediate confession, let me tell you, that having been strictly brought up in the discipline of the Church, I came to marriage with the perfect purity required by Christian morality. Let me also tell you that, for whatever reason you choose--ignorance of the strategy of intrigue, or timidity, or fear of losing my self-respect--I have remained guiltless of the least departure from the strictest marriage laws. I no longer loved my wife, but I was her husband, her faithful husband. You will readily guess at the wretched lapses into weakness confessed in that statement, followed by a reaction of shame, and even of repulsion, which in spite of my best efforts I could not disguise.
"'I thought of going on a long journey. A year or two in India might, or so I supposed, have brought me back to the woman from whom proximity was daily separating me more widely. But she, not understanding this, raised the most serious of all objections: the children needed my oversight.
"'Take us with you,' she stupidly suggested.
"'The die was cast. We remained where we were: chained together, each horribly distressing the other, and, with each spasm of pain, deepening our own hurt and that of our companion in irons. She, unfailingly angelic, and I, unbalanced, full of whims, and doubtless unbearable. Who knows? If it had been possible to her nature, a clap of thunder might have scattered the contrary electric currents between us, and have restored peace. But no. We were enemies always on the point of grappling, with never the relief of a word or a gesture of battle. My nerves were on the point of giving way, when the inevitable romance came into my life.'
"'You are still far from strong. Do not tell me any more to-day.'
"'Nay, chance has forced this confession. Let us go through with it to the end. After this, we will never refer to it again. The romance you have guessed at was connected with a lovable and light-hearted girl. She was a little intoxicated with her own youth, and full of the exquisite charm which illusion had once lent to the woman I married, and in which she was to me so lamentably lacking now. What shall I say? I loved and was loved. Our passion was an ideal one, very sweet, very pure, carrying with it no remorse. Were I to tell you the story of it, it might even seem childish to you. It contained, however, the two happiest years of my life. Two years that passed like a flash. Two years of silent delight, ending one day in a definite avowal. No sooner had we uttered the words, than fear of the sin we glimpsed assailed us, and we fell back aghast into the depths of despair. Our only kiss was the kiss of eternal farewell.