From that instant Byron began to hate and to hate virulently. The world was coloured by his mood to an extent where he saw storms and muddy pavements despite the fact that the sun was shining. He had been made a fool of, that was his plaint, not alone by her, but by every one. All had conspired, it would appear, to make him out a complete ass. One of his first acts, induced by his blind, unreasoning fury, was to purchase a revolver.
A revulsion followed in which he sank into a state of utter depression. And now his guilty conscience reminded him of Mary, Mary who still loved him in spite of his treatment of her. Mary whose advice he had scorned. Perhaps she had been right to try to persuade him to see more influential people. If only he could have humbled his pride sufficiently to call on the Sumners, his affairs might have moved more prosperously. It was not alone the Sumners that he had neglected, to his own undoing, it was the social background they represented. He had missed all that and he had only himself to blame. His father had provided him with letters which would have opened all doors for him. His dear, old father who had forgiven him his misdeeds, who
