That she had but made on a
more conspicuous scale, the same sacrifice as myself to the god of
Wealth and Position, was in my eyes at that time, no palliation of
her conduct. I was a man none too good or exalted at the best; she, a
woman, should have been superior to the temptations that overpowered
me. That she was not, seemed to drag all womanhood a little nearer
the dust; fashionable womanhood I ought to say, for somehow even at
that early day her conduct did not seem to affect the vivid image of
Luttra standing upon my threshold, shorn of her joy but burning with
a devotion I did not comprehend, and saying,
"'I loved you. Ah, and I do yet, my husband, love you so that I leave
you. When the day comes--if the day comes--you need or feel you need
the sustainment of my presence or the devotion of my heart, no power
on earth save that of death itself, shall keep me from your side.'
"Yes, with the fading away of other faces and other forms, that face
and that form now began to usurp the chief place in my thoughts. Not
to my relief and pleasure. That could scarcely be, remembering all
that had occurred; rather to my increasing distress and passionate
resentment. I longed to forget I was held by a tie, that known to
the world would cause me the bitterest shame.
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