The old wound which that gossip had dealt him then was reopened now.

He thought of Tremayne's manifest concern for Una; he remembered how in that very room some six weeks ago, when Butler's escapade had first been heard of, it was from avowed concern for Una that Tremayne had urged him to befriend and rescue his rascally brother-in-law.

He remembered, too, with increasing bitterness that it was Una herself had induced him to appoint Tremayne to his staff.
There were moments when the conviction of Tremayne's honesty, the thought of Tremayne's unswerving friendship for himself, would surge up to combat and abate the fires of his devastating jealousy.
But evidence would kindle those fires anew until they flamed up to scorch his soul with shame and anger.

He had been a fool in that he had married a woman of half his years; a fool in that he had suffered her former lover to be thrown into close association with her.
Thus he assured himself.

But he would abide by his folly, and so must she.