him about the abominable conduct of—­that woman.  He argued to himself that decent people—­and he knew no others—­did not care to talk about such indelicate affairs.  She had gone off—­with that unhealthy, fat ass of a journalist.  Why?  He had been all a husband ought to be.  He had given her a good position—­she shared his prospects—­he had treated her invariably with great consideration.  He reviewed his conduct with a kind of dismal pride.  It had been irreproachable.  Then, why?  For love?  Profanation!  There could be no love there.  A shameful impulse of passion.  Yes, passion.  His own wife!  Good God! . . .  And the indelicate aspect of his domestic misfortune struck him with such shame that, next moment, he caught himself in the act of pondering absurdly over the notion whether it would not be more dignified for him to induce a general belief that he had been in the habit of beating his wife.  Some fellows do . . . and anything would be better than the filthy fact; for it was clear he had lived with the root of it for five years—­and it was too shameful.  Anything!  Anything!  Brutality . . .  But he gave it up directly, and began to think of the Divorce Court.  It did not present itself to him, notwithstanding his respect for law and usage, as a proper refuge for dignified grief.  It appeared rather as an unclean and sinister cavern where men and women are haled by adverse fate to writhe ridiculously in the presence of uncompromising truth.  It should not be allowed.  That woman!  Five . . . years . . . married five years . . . and never to see anything.  Not to the very last day . . . not till she coolly went off.  And he pictured to himself all the people he knew engaged in speculating as to whether all that time he had been blind, foolish, or infatuated.  What a woman!  Blind! . . .  Not at all.  Could a clean-minded man imagine such depravity?  Evidently not.  He drew a free breath.  That was the attitude to take; it was dignified enough; it gave him the advantage, and he could not help perceiving that it was moral.  He yearned unaffectedly to see morality (in his person) triumphant before the world.  As to her she would be forgotten.  Let her be forgotten—­buried in oblivion—­lost!  No one would allude . . .  Refined people—­and every man and woman he knew could be so described—­had, of course, a horror of such topics.  Had they?  Oh, yes.  No one would allude to her . . . in his hearing.  He stamped his foot, tore the letter across, then again and again.  The thought of sympathizing friends excited in him a fury of mistrust.  He flung down the small bits of paper.  They settled, fluttering at his feet, and looked very white on the dark carpet, like a scattered handful of snow-flakes.