He had angered his father terribly, and Miles, in a burst of temper, had disclosed the fact that his own property was in peril.

They had been, estranged ever since; but the time had come when Dyck must at least secure the credit of his father's name at his bank to find the means of living.
It was with this staring him in the face that Erris Boyne's company seemed to offer at least a recovery of his good spirits.

Dissipated as Boyne's look was, he had a natural handsomeness which, with good care of himself personally, well-appointed clothes, a cheerful manner, and witty talk, made him palatable to careless-living Dublin.
This Dublin knew little of Boyne's present domestic life.

It did not know that he had injured his second wife as badly as he had wronged his first--with this difference, however, that his first wife was a lady, while his second wife, Noreen, was a beautiful, quick-tempered, lovable eighteen-year-old girl, a graduate of the kitchen and dairy, when he took her to himself.

He had married her in a mad moment after his first wife--Mrs.Llyn, as she was now called--had divorced him; and after the first thrill of married life was over, nothing remained with Boyne except regret that he had sold his freedom for what he might, perhaps, have had without marriage.
Then began a process of domestic torture which alienated Noreen from him, and roused in her the worst passions of human nature.