damnable, at the cost of his wife's honour, to offer some mitigation
of his unspeakable offence.

Conceive this terrible position in which his justifiable jealousy
- his naturally vindictive rage - had so irretrievably ensnared him.
He had been so intent upon the administration of poetic justice, so
intent upon condignly punishing the false friend who had dishonoured
him, upon finding a balm for his lacerated soul in the spectacle of
Tremayne's own ignominy, that he had never paused to see whither all
this might lead him.

He had been a fool to have adopted these subtle, tortuous ways; a
fool not to have obeyed the earlier and honest impulse which had led
him to take that case of pistols from the drawer. And he was served
as a fool deserves to be served. His folly had recoiled upon him to
destroy him. Fool's mate had checked his perfidious vengeance at a
blow.

Why had Sylvia Armytage discarded her honour to make of it a cloak
for the protection of Tremayne? Did she love Tremayne and take
that desperate way to save a life she accounted lost, or was it that
she knew the truth, and out of affection for Una had chosen to
immolate herself?

Sir Terence was no psychologist. But he found it difficult to
believe in so much of self-sacrifice from a woman for a woman's sake,
however dear. Therefore he held to the first alternative. To
confirm it came the memory of Sylvia's words to him on the night of
Tremayne's arrest. And it was to such a man that she gave the
priceless treasure of her love; for such a man, and in such a sordid