“Well, and what did he marry you for—­your pretty face?”

“I don’t know; he said so; it may have had something to do with it.  I think it was my ten thousand pounds, for once I had a whole ten thousand pounds of my own, my poor mother left it me, and it was tied up so that my father could not touch it.  Well, of course, when I married, my husband would not have any settlements, and so he took it, every farthing.”

“And what did he do with it?”

“Spent it upon some other woman in London—­most of it.  I found him out; he gave her thousands of pounds at once.”

“Well, I should not have thought that he was so generous,” he said with a laugh.

She paused a moment and covered her face with her hand, and then went on:  “If you only knew, Edward, if you had the faintest idea what my life was till a year and a half ago, when I first saw you, you would pity me and understand why I am bad, and passionate, and jealous, and everything that I ought not to be.  I never had any happiness as a girl —­how could I in such a home as ours?—­and then almost before I was a woman I was handed over to that man.  Oh, how I hated him, and what I endured!”

“Yes, it can’t have been very pleasant.”

“Pleasant—­but there, we have done with each other now—­we don’t even speak much except in public, that’s my price for holding my tongue about the lady in London and one or two other little things—­so what is the use of talking of it?  It was a horrible nightmare, but it has gone.  And then,” she went on, fixing her beautiful eyes upon his face, “then I saw you, Edward, and for the first time in my life I learnt what love was, and I think that no woman ever loved like that before.  Other women have had something to care for in their lives, I never had anything till I saw you.  It may be wicked, but it’s true.”

He turned slightly away and said nothing.

“And yet, dear,” she went on in a low voice, “I think it has been one of the hardest things of all—­my love for you.  For, Edward,” and she rose and took his hand and looked into his face with her soft full eyes full of tears, “I should have liked to be a blessing to you, and not a curse, and—­and—­a cause of sin.  Oh, Edward, I should have made you such a good wife, no man could have had a better, and I would have helped you too, for I am not such a fool as I seem, and now I shall do nothing but bring trouble upon you; I know I shall.  And it was my fault too, at least most of it; don’t ever think that I deceive myself, for I don’t; I led you on, I know I did, I meant to—­there!  Think me as shameless as you like, I meant to from the first.  And no good can come of it, I know that, although I would not have it undone.  No good can ever come of what is wrong.  I may be very wicked, but I know that——­” and she began to cry outright.