The newspaper had dropped from his hand.

For a moment he saw her as she was, and he despised himself.

Yes, it was just that; she had corrupted his life; he already felt himself tainted to his very marrow by impurities hitherto undreamed of.

Everything was now destined to rot within him, and in the twinkling of an eye he understood what this evil entailed.

He saw the ruin brought about by this kind of "leaven"-- himself poisoned, his family destroyed, a bit of the social fabric cracking and crumbling.