"No," I answered in some surprise; for Challoner had always seemed to
me the very type of the solitary, self-contained bachelor.

"I have never mentioned it," said he. "The subject would have been a
painful one. It is not now. The malice of sorrow and misfortune loses
its power as I near the end of my pilgrimage. Soon I shall step across
the border and be out of its jurisdiction forever."

He paused, lit his cigar, took a few labored draughts of the fragrant
smoke, and resumed: "I did not marry until I was turned forty. I had no
desire to. I was a solitary man, full of my scientific interests and not
at all susceptible to the influence of women. But at last I met my late
wife and found her different from all other women whom I had seen. She
was a beautiful girl, some twenty years younger than I, highly
intelligent, cultivated and possessed of considerable property. Of
course I was no match for her. I was nothing to look at, was double her
age, was only moderately well off and had no special standing either
socially or in the world of science. But she married me and, as I may
say, she married me handsomely; by which I mean that she always treated
our marriage as a great stroke of good fortune for her, as if the
advantages were all on her side instead of on mine. As a result, we were
absolutely devoted to each other. Our life was all that married life
could be and that it so seldom is. We were inseparable. In our work, in
our play, in every interest and occupation, we were in perfect harmony.
We grudged the briefest moment of separation and avoided all society
because we were so perfectly happy with each other. She was a wife in a
million; and it was only after I had married her that I realized what a
delightful thing it was to be alive. My former existence, looked back on
from that time, seemed but a blank expanse through which I had stagnated
as a chrysalis lingers on, half alive, through the dreary months of