more than once the fits were more severe.) I relapsed more than once and as a means of impressing my resolution for future abstinence I would walk for miles in the middle of pitch-black nights....

Miss T. came over to Adelaide and as I knew nothing definite against her and heard that she was engaged, I thought perhaps my suspicions were unfounded and was friendly.  But one day in town I saw her and A. on a tram going out to our cottage.  Even then my suspicions might not have been awakened, but I saw Miss T. say something rapidly to A., and A. called out to me, “Will you be coming home soon?” And I answered “No.”  When the tram had gone on I found myself vaguely wondering what Miss T. wanted to know that for, for my perceptions were becoming acute enough to understand women’s ways.  In another minute I was walking rapidly home.  When I came to the door it was locked.  I knocked and knocked and no one came.  I called out and threatened to kick in the door.  Still no one came.  Mad with rage I commenced to put my threat into execution, when the door was opened by Miss T., half-naked, in her petticoats, and pale as death, but no longer defiant.  “So I’ve caught you, have I?” I looked, but could not trust myself to speak.  Wondering why A. did not appear I went into the bedroom.  She was lying on the bed, just as Miss T. had left her, on the verge of a fit, and on seeing me she held out her hands piteously, and when I stooped over her she whispered, “Send her away, send her away.”  Then she became unconscious and going into the next room I ordered Miss T. (who had managed to scramble on her dress) out of the house.  I spoke scornfully as if addressing a dog, and she slinked out with a malignant but cowed look I hope never to see on a woman’s face again.  What they had been doing with their clothes off I do not know; women will rather die than confess.  When A. had recovered from her fit she denied that there had been anything between them, and stuck to it doggedly, but with such a forlorn look I had not the heart to prosecute my inquiries.

For my part, all the efforts I had been making for so long seemed for a time to be in vain; for some weeks I sank into a sort of satyriasis, and even my anger against Miss T. turned to a prurient curiosity.  At the same time I was not always able to adhere to my diet.  But both as regards coition and diet I was still fighting, and on the whole successfully.  My fits of temper, however, were excessive and my ennui became gloomy despair.  One day I blasphemed on crossing the Park and spoke contemptuously of “God and his twopenny ha’penny revolving balls,” referring to the planetary system.  But for long walks I should have gone mad.  A. was drinking in the intervals of her fits.  I found half-empty bottles of wine hidden away.  This did not improve my temper, and one day—­this was when she was well and up—­I struck her a heavy blow on the face, and she aimed a glass