After all, it was a simple matter; Marie had given him her promise, and he would compel her to keep it.

She would be his, and his alone, and none would be able to steal her from him.

Then, however, there rose before him a vision of his brother, the long-forgotten one, whom, from feelings of affection, he had compelled to join his family.

But his sufferings were now so acute that he would have driven that brother away had he been before him.

He was enraged, maddened, by the thought of him.