“No,” said Selwyn, “I’ll manage this particular affair.  And now I’ll tell you how I’m going to do it.  I have in my lodgings—­or rather in the small hall bedroom which I now occupy—­an army service revolver, in fairly good condition.  The cylinder was a little stiff this morning when I looked at it, but I’ve oiled it with No. 27—­an excellent rust solvent and lubricant, Mr. Ruthven—­and now the cylinder spins around in a manner perfectly trustworthy.  So, as I was saying, I have this very excellent and serviceable weapon, and shall give myself the pleasure of using it on you if you ever commence any such action for divorce or separation against your wife.  This is final.”

Ruthven stared at him as though hypnotised.

“Don’t mistake me,” added Selwyn, a trifle wearily.  “I am not compelling you to decency for the purpose of punishing you; men never trouble themselves to punish vermin—­they simply exterminate them, or they retreat and avoid them.  I merely mean that you shall never again bring publicity and shame upon your wife—­even though now, mercifully enough, she has not the faintest idea that you are what a complacent law calls her husband.”

A slow blaze lighted up his eyes, and he got up from his chair.

“You decadent little beast!” he said slowly, “do you suppose that the dirty accident of your intrusion into an honest man’s life could dissolve the divine compact of wedlock?  Soil it—­yes; besmirch it, render it superficially unclean, unfit, nauseous—­yes.  But neither you nor your vile code nor the imbecile law you invoked to legalise the situation really ever deprived me of my irrevocable status and responsibility. . . .  I—­even I—­was once—­for a while—­persuaded that it did; that the laws of the land could do this—­could free me from a faithless wife, and regularise her position in your household.  The laws of the land say so, and I—­I said so at last—­persuaded because I desired to be persuaded. . . .  It was a lie.  My wife, shamed or unshamed, humbled or unhumbled, true to her marriage vows or false to them, now legally the wife of another, has never ceased to be my wife.  And it is a higher law that corroborates me—­higher than you can understand—­a law unwritten because axiomatic; a law governing the very foundation of the social fabric, and on which that fabric is absolutely dependent for its existence intact.  But”—­with a contemptuous shrug—­“you won’t understand; all you can understand is the gratification of your senses and the fear of something interfering with that gratification—­like death, for instance.  Therefore I am satisfied that you understand enough of what I said to discontinue any legal proceedings which would tend to discredit, expose, or cast odium on a young wife very sorely stricken—­very, very ill—­whom God, in his mercy, has blinded to the infamy where you have dragged her—­under the law of the land.”

He turned on his heel, paced the little room once or twice, then swung round again: