“You see how it is,” continued Graeme, getting into his former expression:  “through this channel, this innocent medium, this creature the fruit of my loins, the idol of my heart, is the lightning of reproof hurled.  A wandering idiot is prompted by the very inspiration of her imbecility to put into the hands of my child the emblem of my wickedness, that she in her love might place it before my eyes, there to develop the sin-print in the dark camera of my mind.  No wonder she is alarmed at the mention of the words, for she read the horror produced in me when she held up what she called the pretty picture in my face.  But, thank God! thank God!”——­

And he fell for a moment into meditation.

“For what?” said I, as my wonder increased.

“That her mother, who is within a week of her confinement, knows nothing of this mystery.”

I was silent.  I might have said, “What mystery?” but I would only have irritated him.

“Rymer!”

I started.  I was looking into the fire, with my ear altogether his, yet the strange mention of my name startled me.

“What could infamy—­infamy, with just a beam of consciousness to tell it was infamy, and no more but that beam—­think and feel to be worshipped by purity and love?  I have shrunk from the embrace of that woman with a recoil equal to that produced by the enfolding of a snake.”

“Though she knows not, and may never know, anything of this affair which has taken such a hold of you?” said I, rather as a speaking automaton, forced to vocabulate.

“The very reason why I recoil and shudder.”

I had made a mistake—­I would not risk another.  “The man has got into the enfolding arms of mania,” I thought, “and I must be chary.”

“Will you keep in your remembrance,” he continued, “the words uttered by Edith, and how she came by them?  Will you?”

“Yes.”

“Then take another glass; you will need it, and another too.”

I obeyed not quite so mechanically.  The Burgundy was better than the conversation, and I made the pleasure of the palate compensate for the pain of the ear.

He now drew out his watch, and, going to the window, withdrew the curtains.  The shades of night had fallen.  It looked black as Tartarus, contrasted with the light within.

“Come here!” he cried; and when I had somewhat reluctantly obeyed what I considered the request of one whose internal sense had got a jerk from some mad molecule out of its orbit in the brain—­“Do you see anything?”

“Yes,” said I—­“a big black negative; but as for anything positive, you might as well look into a coal-pit and find what philosophers do in the wells of truth.  There’s nothing to be seen.”

“No?  Look there—­there!  See,” pointing with his finger, and clutching me tremulously, “once more—­the traces as vivid as ever!  See!”

I verily did think I saw something luminous, but it quickly disappeared.  “Oh, probably the reflection of a lantern,” I said.