It may at first appear strange that a man so calculating and whose
desires seemed to be fixed upon such a material end as the acquirement
by artifice or even fraud of the wealth which he coveted, should also
nourish in his heart so bitter a hatred and so keen a thirst for
revenge upon a woman as Mr. Quest undoubtedly did towards his
beautiful wife. It would have seemed more probable that he would have
left heroics alone and attempted to turn his wife's folly into a means
of wealth and self-advancement: and this would not doubt have been so
had Mrs. Quest's estimate of his motives in marrying her been an
entirely correct one. She had told Edward Cossey, it will be
remembered, that her husband had married her for her money--the ten
thousand pounds of which he stood so badly in need. Now this was the
truth to a certain extent, and a certain extent only. He had wanted
the ten thousand pounds, in fact at the moment money was necessary to
him. But, and this his wife had never known or realised, he had been,
and still was, also in love with her. Possibly the ten thousand pounds
would have proved a sufficient inducement to him without the love, but
the love was none the less there. Their relations, however, had never
been happy ones. She had detested him from the fist, and had not
spared to say so. No man with any refinement--and whatever he lacked
Mr. Quest had refinement--could bear to be thus continually repulsed
by a woman, and so it came to pass that their intercourse had always
been of the most strained nature. Then when she at last had obtained
the clue to the secret of his life, under threat of exposure she drove
her bargain, of which the terms were complete separation in all but
outward form, and virtual freedom of action for herself. This,
considering the position, she was perhaps justified in doing, but her
husband never forgave her for it. More than that, he determined, if by
any means it were possible, to turn the passion which, although she