Ruthven turned, took two unsteady steps forward, and laid his heavily ringed hand on the back of a chair.  Selwyn smiled, and Ruthven sat down.

“Now,” continued Selwyn, “for certain rules of conduct to govern you during the remainder of your wife’s lifetime. . . .  And your wife is ill, Mr. Ruthven—­sick of a sickness which may last for a great many years, or may be terminated in as many days.  Did you know it?”

Ruthven snarled.

“Yes, of course you knew it, or you suspected it.  Your wife is in a sanitarium, as you have discovered.  She is mentally ill—­rational at times—­violent at moments, and for long periods quite docile, gentle, harmless—­content to be talked to, read to, advised, persuaded.  But during the last week a change of a certain nature has occurred which—­which, I am told by competent physicians, not only renders her case beyond all hope of ultimate recovery, but threatens an earlier termination than was at first looked for.  It is this:  your wife has become like a child again—­occupied contentedly and quite happily with childish things.  She has forgotten much; her memory is quite gone.  How much she does remember it is impossible to say.”

His head fell; his brooding eyes were fixed again on the rug at his feet.  After a while he looked up.

“It is pitiful, Mr. Ruthven—­she is so young—­with all her physical charm and attraction quite unimpaired.  But the mind is gone—­quite gone, sir.  Some sudden strain—­and the tension has been great for years—­some abrupt overdraft upon her mental resource, perhaps; God knows how it came—­from sorrow, from some unkindness too long endured—­”

Again he relapsed into his study of the rug; and slowly, warily, Ruthven lifted his little, inflamed eyes to look at him, then moistened his dry lips with a thick-coated tongue, and stole a glance at the locked door.

“I understand,” said Selwyn, looking up suddenly, “that you are contemplating proceedings against your wife.  Are you?”

Ruthven made no reply.

“Are you?” repeated Selwyn.  His face had altered; a dim glimmer played in his eyes like the reflection of heat lightning at dusk.

“Yes, I am,” said Ruthven.

“On the grounds of her mental incapacity?”

“Yes.”

“Then, as I understand it, the woman whom you persuaded to break every law, human and divine, for your sake, you now propose to abandon.  Is that it?”

Ruthven made no reply.

“You propose to publish her pitiable plight to the world by beginning proceedings; you intend to notify the public of your wife’s infirmity by divorcing her.”

“Sane or insane,” burst out Ruthven, “she was riding for a fall—­and she’s going to get it!  What the devil are you talking about?  I’m not accountable to you.  I’ll do what I please; I’ll manage my own affairs—­”