The world begins to ask, vaguely at first, but with a constantly
increasing persistence, how the thing is done. Respectability and
malice combine to whisper a truthful answer. Starting from the axiom
that the precarious income which is produced by a want of success in
many branches of business cannot support luxury or purchase diamonds,
they arrive, _per saltum_, at the conclusion that there must be some
third party to provide the wife and the husband with means for their
existence. His name is soon fixed upon, and his motives readily
inferred. It can be none other than the husband's rich bachelor
friend, the same who accompanies the pair on all their expeditions,
who is a constant guest at their house, and is known to be both lavish
and determined in the prosecution of any object on which he has set
his heart. His heart, in this instance, is set upon his friend's wife,
and the obstacles in his way do not seem to be very formidable. The
case, indeed, is soon too manifest for any one but a born idiot to
feign ignorance of it. The husband is not a born idiot--he either sees
it plainly, or (it may be, after a struggle) he looks another way,
and resigns himself to the inevitable.
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