As for women--there was his wife--of whom he was willing to think as well as she would let him! And she, firmly did he believe, was an angel beside Sepia!--of whom, bad as she was, it is quite possible he thought yet worse than she deserved: alas for the woman who is not good, and falls under the judgment of a bad man!--the good woman he can no more hurt than the serpent can bite the adamant.

He believed he knew Sepia's self, although he did not yet know her history; and he scorned her the more that he was not a hair better himself.

He had regard enough for his wife, and what virtue his penetration conceded her, to hate their intimacy; and ever since his marriage had been scheming how to get rid of Sepia--only, however, through finding her out: he must unmask her: there would be no satisfaction in getting rid of her without his wife's convinced acquiescence.

He had been, therefore, almost all the time more or less on the watch to uncover the wickedness he felt sure lay at no great depth beneath her surface; and in the mean time, and for the sake of this end, he lived on terms of decent domiciliation with her.

She had no suspicion how thin was the crust between her and the lava.
In Cornwall, he began at length to puzzle himself about Mary.