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 the rest and freedom from my distressing home life—yes, I may as well admit it was distressing. Madeleine grew continually harder to live with, and Mrs. Selden was always a thorn in my flesh. I would not make these disclosures, Nick, but I must make you understand.”

“I do understand, Andrew, and I want you to know it!”

Nelson impulsively reached over and grasped his friend’s hand.

Lorimer Lane, too, showed appreciation and understanding, but he was eagerly awaiting the rest of the story. His leaping mind had already jumped to the last chapter.

“But,” Barham resumed, “there never was a truer word than Oscar Wilde wrote in his ‘Ballad of Reading Gaol.’

“I have proved that over and over again. I have lived a double life, it is true, and I have paid for it by dying a thousand deaths in my conscience. I have suffered remorse untold—I have so loathed myself at times that I would willingly have died in earnest to get out of it all. And then—the urge would be so strong, the desire for that little home, those few good friends—that I would go back there in spite of myself.”

“And I don’t blame you!” cried Nelson. “It was no crime, Drew. Many a man lives a double life of far more ignominy and shame.”

“There was no ignominy, no shame,” said Barham, gravely, “but it was deceit—and I am not naturally a deceitful man. I could look at it all calmly and dispassionately while I was down at the studio, but whe