I remarked on her looks as peculiar, and expressed a fear that she was unwell.  No, she assured me, her health was as usual.  Perhaps, then, she did not find her stay in Florence agreeable.  Perfectly so.  She had no desire to go or to remain, except as I had arranged in the programme of our tour.  But, I urged, she seemed dejected.  Something must have occurred to depress her mind.  Not at all.  She was unaware that her humor was different from ordinary.

‘Indeed, Evelyn,’ said I, ’there is deception in this, and I insist on an explanation.’

She looked surprised, but did not yet comprehend my purport; so answered, in a proper, wife-like manner, that my anxiety had deceived me—­that in all respects her feelings, and, so far as she knew, her appearance, differed not from what they had been.

‘Well, then,’ said I, ’your feelings and appearance must be changed.  I will tolerate them no longer.’

Her features evinced the greatest astonishment.  ‘You are inexplicable,’ she said.  ‘May I beg to know your meaning?’

’Know it?  You shall, and you shall conform yourself to it.  Resistance will be vain, for (displaying the pistols) I have the means of coercion.’

She thought I was mad, and rose on the impulse to summon help.

‘Do not stir a step,’ I said, aiming a pistol at her, ’or it will be your last.’  She stopped, without exhibiting the least symptom of fear, but simply because she saw that to proceed would be useless.

‘Ha! ha!  Evelyn,’ said I, forcing an imitation of incoherent laughter, ’I am but trifling with you.  I am not mad.  I sought but to rouse some passion in you—­either of fear or of anger.  But, alas!  I have not sufficient power over you even for that.  Sit down.  I have something to relate.  When I have ended, these pistols may be useful for one or both of us.  But you do not fear them.  I have long known that life was too valueless to you for fear of losing it to make any impression.’

She saw that something unusual was impending—­what she did not fully understand, but calmly took her seat to await it.  At this moment a servant knocked and entered with a letter.  I mechanically opened it and read.  It was an announcement from my partners that my inattention to the business had involved us all in ruin.  The clerk to whom I had entrusted it (the sporting character before mentioned) had defaulted and fled.  He had contracted large debts in the name of the firm, and gambled away all the accessible funds.  The ruin was supposed to be irretrievable, and with many bitter reproaches I was summoned to return with speed to extricate affairs, and—­make such reparation as I could.

The letter filled me with almost demoniacal joy.  I was ruined, and for her sake.  I gloated over the thought.

‘These weapons will now be useless,’ said I.  ’Place them on the shelf beside you.  This letter will answer in their stead.’