'I hated her and I hate her still

　　"'I hated her and I hate her still,' he said with vehemence; 'ifshe dies I shall hate her more because she will remaineverlastingly unbroken to menace my thoughts and spoil my schemesthrough all eternity.'
　　"He leant forward, his elbows on his knees, his clenched fistunder his chin - how well I can see him! - and stared at me.
　　"'I could have been king here in this land,' he said, waving hishand toward the interior, 'I could have bribed and shot my way tothe throne of Albania. Don't you realize what that means to a manlike me? There is still a chance and if I could keep your wifealive, if I could see her broken in reason and in health, a poor,skeleton, gibbering thing that knelt at my feet when I came nearher I should recover the mastery of myself. Believe me,' he said,nodding his head, 'your wife will have the best medical advicethat it is possible to obtain.'
　　"Kara went out and I did not see him again for a very long time.
　　He sent word, just a scrawled note in the morning, to say my wifehad died."John Lexman rose up from his seat, and paced the apartment, hishead upon his breast.
　　"From that moment," he said, "I lived only for one thing, topunish Remington Kara. And gentlemen, I punished him."He stood in the centre of the room and thumped his broad chestwith his clenched hand.
　　"I killed Remington Kara," he said, and there was a little gasp ofastonishment from every man present save one. That one was T. X.
　　Meredith, who had known all the time.
Chapter 22
"I told you that there was a man at the palazzo named Salvolio.
　　Salvolio was a man who had been undergoing a life sentence in oneof the prisons of southern Italy. In some mysterious fashion heescaped and got across the Adriatic in a small boat. How Karafound him I don't know. Salvolio was a very uncommunicativeperson. I was never certain whether he was a Greek or an Italian.
　　All that I am sure about is that he was the most unmitigatedvillain next to his master that I have ever met.
　　"He was a quick man with his knife and I have seen him kill one ofthe guards whom he had thought was favouring me in the matter ofdiet with less compunction than you would kill a rat.
　　"It was he who gave me this scar," John Lexman pointed to hischeek. "In his master's absence he took upon himself the task ofconducting a clumsy imitation of Kara's persecution. He gave me,too, the only glimpse I ever had of the torture poor Graceunderwent. She hated dogs, and Kara must have come to know thisand in her sleeping room - she was apparently better accommodatedthan I - he kept four fierce beasts so chained that they couldalmost reach her.
　　"Some reference to my wife from this low brute maddened me beyondendurance and I sprang at him. He whipped out his knife andstruck at me as I fell and I escaped by a miracle. He evidentlyhad orders not to touch me, for he was in a great panic of mind,as he had reason to be, because on Kara's return he discovered thestate of my face, started an enquiry and had Salvolio taken to thecourtyard in the true eastern style and bastinadoed until his feetwere pulp.