"As I said before--and as I shall say twenty times, if necessary, until you see reason!"
"Suppose I _had_ taken her back--what then?"
"Then," said Cameron slowly--"it would depend on what _she_ wanted. Your first duty would be to her."
Lorraine frowned and stared at the table.
"You may be right," he admitted, "but what do you think is my duty to myself under the circumstances?"
"If I were in your place," Cameron answered, "I should first consider whether to take her back----"
"I have considered, I tell you--it is impossible."
"Then I should forget her and everything connected with her. I should turn the case over to my attorneys and go away until the trial. When the divorce is granted, I should resume my old life as if I had never been married."
"And Amherst--what would you do about him?" asked Lorraine.
"I should not think of him. To me, he would not exist."
"You have never been married!" commented Lorraine bitterly. "You cannot know the impulse to violence--the impulse to kill. I want to see him die--to choke him with my own hands--to feel his struggles--his writhings--his gasps--to prolong his agony--to watch his face in the death throes--to feel his last breath--sometimes, that is. At other times, I am indifferent. I don't care what becomes of her or him--nor myself. Why is it, Cameron, why is it?"
"It was the uncertainty--till you've made up your mind what to do," Cameron answered. "But it is over now, old man. You have decided.--Moreover you're likely to have plenty of time to master your impulse to homicide. Amherst has gone to Europe with Mrs. Amherst. They will likely be gone a long time."
"With Mrs. Amherst!" Lorraine exclaimed. "She has taken him back?"
"H-u-m--I suppose some people will think I should do that too."
"Many persons, many minds," replied Cameron. "However, it's no one's affairs but your own--so let them all go to the devil."
"It's different with Amherst," Lorraine reflected. "He's not smirched so much."
"I think it is a question which concerns only the parties interested--so deeply concerns them, indeed, that no one else has any right to an opinion."
"In the abstract, no. But, in the practical, Society's view must be considered--it says the woman's case is very different from the man's--and it may make the husband feel it if he takes her back."