“Why did you not own her as your wife?”

Faith hardly knew her own voice as she asked this.  It hardly seemed possible that she could speak so calmly.

Mr. Denton looked at her sharply before he replied.

“You can guess that surely,” he said very softly.  “Rascal that I was, I was ashamed to own her.”

After a minute he went on with almost desperate calmness, as though he was determined to tell the whole of the distressing secret.

“I told her that dad would disown me if he knew that I had married her, but that if she would wait until I was twenty-one, that there would be no more danger of my losing my money.  Mag likes money, you know, and she consented readily, but when she saw me flirting with the other girls, as I had to, you see, to make every one think that I was still single, her jealousy got the best of her, and you know what happened.”

“Well, you will have to own her now,” said Faith in almost a whisper.

She had been praying silently for strength to say it calmly.

“Never!” cried young Denton with a flash of anger in his eyes.

“Own a murderess for my wife—­never! never!  Miss Marvin!”

“Then I shall despise you,” said Faith, with a flush of color in her cheeks.  “For it is the only thing you can do to right the wrong that you have done her.”

“But I can’t.  Indeed, I can’t!” cried the young man, wildly.  “Don’t you see, Miss Marvin, that I have nothing to give her, no love, no respect, not even friendship?”

“But you must own her, just the same,” said Faith, decidedly.  “Maggie was a good girl once; it is love for you that has ruined her.”

James Denton was even paler than when he entered as he answered her, and there was a tone in his voice that made Faith shudder.

“Two wrongs cannot make one right, Miss Marvin,” he said, firmly, “and to live with Maggie would be as great a wrong as the first, for I cannot do so honorably while I love another.”

Faith looked up at him quickly and found his gaze riveted on her face.  For a moment she seemed drawn to him as if by a magnet, then the revulsion came again and she raised both hands imploringly.

“Go, go, Mr. Denton!” she cried in a sharp whisper.  “Please go before you say what is in your heart, for your words can only add cruel mockery to dishonor!”

CHAPTER XXXVII.

The blessing of repentance.

A week passed before Faith went to the store again.  She was too utterly miserable to think of resuming her duties.

Mr. Watkins called on her every night to bring her news of the store, and by this means she kept track of all Mr. Denton’s changes.

One night Mr. Watkins had mentioned a number of things which had benefited the clerks as well as the customers, and in concluding his recital he sighed very heavily, an indication to Faith that there was something more behind it.