My theory was that man and woman were but machines, and that passion, and not the love which we dream and read of, united these machines; and that every machine, whether it was a man or a woman, could be broken and destroyed in a moral sense by some other machine of the opposite sex--if conditions were right.

Do you understand me?
My theory was destructive of homes, of happiness, of moral purity.

It was bad.

I argued my point in medical journals, and I wrote a book based on it.
But I lacked proof, the actual proof of experience.

So I set out to experiment." He seemed to have forgotten now that Philip was in the room, and went on bitterly, as if arraigning himself for something which he had not yet disclosed.
"It made me a--a--almost a criminal," he continued.