Yet he was conscious that all that he saw was a part of his degradation, for he had believed every word she had uttered.

Through all her extravagance, envy, and revengefulness he saw the central truth--that he had been deceived--not by his wife, but by himself! He had suspected all this before.

This was what had been really troubling him--this was what he had put aside, rather than his faith, not in her, but in his ideal.

He remembered letters that had passed between her and Captain Pinckney--letters that she had openly sent to notorious Southern leaders; her nervous anxiety to remain at the Rancho; the innuendoes and significant glances of friends which he had put aside--as he had this woman's message! Susy had told him nothing new of his wife--but the truth of HIMSELF! And the revelation came from people who he was conscious were the inferiors of himself and his wife.

To an independent, proud, and self-made man it was the culminating stroke.
In the same abstracted voice he told the coachman to drive home.