“Have you heard of your wife again?” I asked.

He displayed a pitiful agitation.  “I am afraid you will think ill of me,” he said.

“Have you taken her back?” I asked.

“No, sir.  I trust I have too much self-respect,” he answered, “and, at least, I was never tempted.  She won’t come, she dislikes, she seems to have conceived a positive distaste for me, and yet I was considered an indulgent husband.”

“You are still in relations, then?” I asked.

“I place myself in your hands, Mr. Dodd,” he replied.  “The world is very hard; I have found it bitter hard myself—­bitter hard to live.  How much worse for a woman, and one who has placed herself (by her own misconduct, I am far from denying that) in so unfortunate a position!”

“In short, you support her?” I suggested.

“I cannot deny it.  I practically do,” he admitted.  “It has been a mill-stone round my neck.  But I think she is grateful.  You can see for yourself.”

He handed me a letter in a sprawling, ignorant hand, but written with violet ink on fine, pink paper with a monogram.  It was very foolishly expressed, and I thought (except for a few obvious cajoleries) very heartless and greedy in meaning.  The writer said she had been sick, which I disbelieved; declared the last remittance was all gone in doctor’s bills, for which I took the liberty of substituting dress, drink, and monograms; and prayed for an increase, which I could only hope had been denied her.

“I think she is really grateful?” he asked, with some eagerness, as I returned it.

“I daresay,” said I.  “Has she any claim on you?”

“O no, sir.  I divorced her,” he replied.  “I have a very strong sense of self-respect in such matters, and I divorced her immediately.”

“What sort of life is she leading now?” I asked.

“I will not deceive you, Mr. Dodd.  I do not know, I make a point of not knowing; it appears more dignified.  I have been very harshly criticised,” he added, sighing.

It will be seen that I had fallen into an ignominious intimacy with the man I had gone out to thwart.  My pity for the creature, his admiration for myself, his pleasure in my society, which was clearly unassumed, were the bonds with which I was fettered; perhaps I should add, in honesty, my own ill-regulated interest in the phases of life and human character.  The fact is (at least) that we spent hours together daily, and that I was nearly as much on the forward deck as in the saloon.  Yet all the while I could never forget he was a shabby trickster, embarked that very moment in a dirty enterprise.  I used to tell myself at first that our acquaintance was a stroke of art, and that I was somehow fortifying Carthew.  I told myself, I say; but I was no such fool as to believe it, even then.  In these circumstances I displayed the two chief qualities of my character on the largest scale—­my helplessness and my instinctive love of procrastination—­and fell upon a course of action so ridiculous that I blush when I recall it.