“I stalked out of the room, had a doctor, who bound up the wound, and then meditated over my situation.  I made up my mind at once to a separation.  Thus far she had done nothing to warrant a divorce, and separation was the only thing.  I was laid up and feverish for about a month, but at the end of that time I had an interview with my wife.  I proposed a separation, and suggested that she should go home to her father.  This she refused.  She declared herself quite willing to have a separation, but insisted on living at Dacres Grange.

“‘And what am I to do?’ I asked.

“‘Whatever you please,’ she replied, calmly.

“‘Do you really propose,’ said I, ’to drive me out of the home of my ancestors, and live here yourself?  Do you think I will allow this place to be under your control after the frightful havoc that you have made?’

“‘I shall remain here,’ said she, firmly.

“I said nothing more.  I saw that she was immovable.  At the same time I could not consent.  I could not live with her, and I could not go away leaving her there.  I could not give up the ancestral home to her, to mar and mangle and destroy.  Well, I waited for about two months, and then—­”

“Well?” asked Hawbury, as Dacres hesitated.

“Dacres Grange was burned down,” said the other, in a low voice.

“Burned down!”

“Yes.”

“Good Lord!”

“It caught fire in the daytime.  There were but few servants.  No fire-engines were near, for the Grange was in a remote place, and so the fire soon gained headway and swept over all.  My wife was frantic.  She came to me as I stood looking at the spectacle, and charged me with setting fire to it.  I smiled at her, but made no reply.

“So you see she was burned out, and that question was settled.  It was a terrible thing, but desperate diseases require desperate remedies; and I felt it more tolerable to have the house in ruins than to have her living there while I had to be a wanderer.

“She was now at my mercy.  We went to Exeter.  She went to her father, and I finally succeeded in effecting an arrangement which was satisfactory on all sides.

“First of all, the separation should be absolute, and neither of us should ever hold communication with the other in any shape or way.

“Secondly, she should take another name, so as to conceal the fact that she was my wife, and not do any further dishonor to the name.

“In return for this I was to give her outright twenty thousand pounds as her own absolutely, to invest or spend just as she chose.  She insisted on this, so that she need not be dependent on any annual allowance.  In consideration of this she forfeited every other claim, all dower right in the event of my death, and every thing else.  This was all drawn up in a formal document, and worded as carefully as possible.  I don’t believe that the document would be of much use in a court of law in case she wished to claim any of her rights, but it served to satisfy her, and she thought it was legally sound and actually inviolable.