“I chose you out from all the rest,
  The reason was I loved you best.”

“And why did you prefer me?” She answered quite archly: 

  “The rose is red, the violet’s blue,
  Sugar is sweet and so are you.”

“I chose you because of your worth.  When I was young, I married for beauty and I pierced my heart through with many sorrows.”

“You been married?” said Annette with a tremor in her tones.  “Why, I never heard of it before.”

“Did not Mr. Thomas or Mrs. Lasette tell you of it?  They knew it, but it is one of the saddest passages of my life, to which I scarcely ever refer.  She, my wife, drifted from me, and was drowned in a freshet near Orleans.”

“Oh, how dreadful, and I never knew it.”

“Does it pain you?”

“No, but it astonishes me.”

“Well, Annette, it is not a pleasant subject, let us talk of something else.  I have not spoken of it to you before, but to-day, when it pressed so painfully upon my mind, it was a relief to me to tell you about it, but now darling dismiss it from your mind and let the dead past bury its dead.”

Just then there came along where they were sitting a woman whose face bore traces of great beauty, but dimmed and impaired by lines of sorrow and disappointment.  Just as she reached the seat where they were sitting, she threw up her hands in sudden anguish, gasped out, “Clarence! my long lost Clarence,” and fell at his feet in a dead faint.

As Mr. Luzerne looked on the wretched woman lying at his feet, his face grew deathly pale.  He trembled like an aspen and murmured in a bewildered tone, “has the grave restored its dead?”

But with Annette there was no time for delay.  She chaffed, the rigid hands, unloosed the closely fitting dress, sent for a cab and had her conveyed as quickly as possible to the home for the homeless.  Then turning to Luzerne, she said bitterly, “Mr. Luzerne, will you explain your encounter with that unfortunate woman?” She spoke as calmly as she could, for a fierce and bitter anguish was biting at her heartstrings.  “What claim has that woman on you?”

“She has the claim of being my wife and until this hour I firmly believed she was in her grave.”  Annette lifted her eyes sadly to his; he calmly met her gaze, but there was no deception in his glance; his eyes were clear and sad and she was more puzzled than ever.

“Annette,” said he, “I have only one favor to ask; let this scene be a secret between us as deep as the sea.  Time will explain all.  Do not judge me too harshly.”

“Clarence,” she said, “I have faith in you, but I do not understand you; but here is the carriage, my work at present is with this poor, unfortunate woman, whose place I was about to unconsciously supplant.”

Chapter XIX