The good-natured fellow then wished me a "Buon riposo, signor!" and descended to his own resting-place, humming a gay tune as he went.

From my recumbent posture on the deck I stared upward at the myriad stars that twinkled softly in the warm violet skies--stared long and fixedly till it seemed to me that our ship had also become a star, and was sailing through space with its glittering companions.

What inhabitants peopled those fair planets, I wondered?
Mere men and women who lived and loved and lied to one another as bravely as we do?
or superior beings to whom the least falsehood is unknown?
Was there one world among them where no women were born?
Vague fancies--odd theories--flitted through my brain, I lived over again the agony of my imprisonment in the vaults--again I forced myself to contemplate the scene I had witnessed between my wife and her lover--again I meditated on every small detail requisite to the fulfillment of the terrible vengeance I had designed.

I have often wondered how, in countries where divorce is allowed, a wronged husband can satisfy himself with so meager a compensation for his injuries as the mere getting rid of the woman who has deceived him.

It is no punishment to her--it is what she wishes.