He was past the anguish of the mockery of everything to-night--he was simply numb.

Then some waiting fiend made him think of Laura and her last words.

What if there were some truth in them after all?
He had himself seen the man twice, under the most suspicious circumstances.

What if he were her lover?
How could Francis Markrute know of all her existence, when he had said she had been an immaculate wife?
And gradually, on top of his other miseries, trifles light as air came and tortured him until presently he had worked up a whole chain of evidence, proving the lover theory to be correct! Then he shook in his chair with rage, and muttered between his teeth: "If I find this is true then I will kill him, and kill her, also!" So near to savages are all human beings, when certain passions are aroused.

And neither bride nor bridegroom guessed that fate would soon take things out of their hands and make their resolutions null and void..