Read "The Bigamist" by Ethel Mills online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
No matter how great a control a man exercises over himself in ordinary circumstances, brought face to face with the painfully unexpected it is frequently the self-contained man who loses the grip on his emotions, and with it his more extended outlook in favour of an immense concentration upon the personal factor created by the new development. The story which Pamela unfolded produced some such effect on Dare. The emotions which moved him while listening to the sordid, pitiful tale were varied. The story of Arnott's bigamous marriage enraged him. The personal factor crept into that. The man had not only cheated the girl, he had cheated him, -- robbed him of the only woman he had ever wished to marry. He had stolen her from him, having no right to her. This thought filled him with a bitter sense of personal loss, of personal injury. The element of self threw his imagination out of focus for the time.
He had a very strong feeling that he wanted to, that he had to, punish Arnott for that mean deception. He would have enjoyed coming to grips with the man.