CHAPTER I.HIS GREAT MISTAKE.
It appeared that Armour had made the great mistake of his life.

When people came to know, they said that to have done it when sober had shown him possessed of a kind of maliciousness and cynicism almost pardonable, but to do it when tipsy proved him merely weak and foolish.

But the fact is, he was less tipsy at the time than was imagined; and he could have answered to more malice and cynicism than was credited to him.

To those who know the world it is not singular that, of the two, Armour was thought to have made the mistake and had the misfortune, or that people wasted their pity and their scorn upon him alone.

Apparently they did not see that the woman was to be pitied.