“I can only reiterate,” he said, “that this letter is a lie from beginning to end.  It is written by a woman, who, with her husband, has blackmailed me and jeopardized my reputation.  I treated them as they deserved, and this is their next move.  As for Mrs. Croix, I repeat, she is a most estimable person, whose brilliant wit and talent for politics draw all public men about her.  There is hardly one among them who might not be victimized by a similar attack.  I doubt if I have called half as often as many others.  As for the friends whom you heard discussing my visits—­you know the love of the human mind for scandal.  Please be reasonable.  You have made me the most wretched man on earth, I shall be unfit for public duty or anything else if you continue to treat me in this brutal manner.  I hardly know you.  No woman was ever more loved by her husband or received more devotion.”

Betsey almost relented, he looked so miserable.  But she replied firmly:  “There is one condition I have a right to make.  If you agree to it, I will consider if I can bring myself to believe your denial and your protestations.  It is that you never enter Mrs. Croix’s house again, nor see her willingly.”

Hamilton knew what the promise would mean, but his mind worked with the rapidity of lightning in great crises, and never erred.  He replied promptly: 

“I will see her once, and once only—­to give her a decent reason for not calling again—­that I understand I am compromising her good name, or something of the sort.  I have accepted too much hospitality at her hands to drop her brusquely, without a word of explanation.”

“You can write her a letter.  You can merely send polite excuses when she invites you.  You are very busy.  You have every excuse.  Gradually, she will think no more about you—­if it be true that she is nothing to you.  You have your choice, sir!  Either your promise, or I return by the next packet to Albany.”

But Hamilton, always considerate of women, and despising the weakness and brutality which permits a man to slink out of an amour, would not retreat, and Betsey finally settled herself in her chair, and said, with unmistakable determination:—­

“Very well, go now.  I shall not move from this room—­this chair—­until you return.”

Hamilton caught his hat and left the house.  Although he was possessed by the one absorbing desire to win back his wife, who had never been so dear as to-day, when for the first time she had placed him at arm’s length and given him a thorough fright, still his brain, accustomed to see all sides of every question at once, and far into the future, spoke plainly of the hour when he would regret the loss of Mrs. Croix.  He might forget her for weeks at a time, but he always reawakened to a sense of her being with a glowing impression that the world was more alive and fair.  The secret romance had been very dear and pleasant.  The end was come, however, and he was eager to pass it.