The earl looked at him thoughtfully.

“I should like to know what your trouble is?” he said gently.

“I can tell you only one half of it,” was the reply.  “I fell in love with one of the sweetest, fairest, purest of girls.  How I loved her is only known to myself.  I suppose every man thinks his own love the greatest and the best.  My whole heart went out to this girl—­with my whole soul I loved her!  She was below me in the one matter of worldly wealth and position—­above me in all other.  When I first asked her to marry me, she refused.  She told me that the difference in our rank was too great.  She was most noble, most self-sacrificing; she loved me, I know, most dearly, but she refused me.  I was for some time unable to overcome her opposition; at last I succeeded.  I tell you no details either of her name or where she lived, nor any other circumstances connected with her—­I tell you only this, that, once having won her consent to our marriage, I seemed to have exchanged earth for Elysium.  Then we were married, not publicly and with great pomp, but as my darling wished—­privately and quietly.  On the same day—­my wedding-day—­I took her home.  I cannot tell how great was my happiness—­no one could realize it.  Believe me, Lord Mountdean, that she herself is as pure as a saint, that I know no other woman at once so meek and so lofty, so noble and so humble.  Looking at her, one feels how true and sweet a woman’s soul can be.  Yet—­oh, that I should live to say it!—­on my wedding-day I discovered something—­it was no fault of hers, I swear—­that parted us.  Loving her blindly, madly, with my whole heart and soul, I was still compelled to leave her.  She is my wife in name only, and can never be more to me, yet, you understand, without any fault of hers.”

“What a strange story!” said the earl, thoughtfully.  “But this barrier, this obstacle—­can it never be removed?”

“No,” answered Lord Arleigh, “never!”

“I assure you of my deepest sympathy,” said the earl.  “It is a strange history.”

“Yes, and a sad fate,” sighed Lord Arleigh.  “You cannot understand my story entirely.  Wanting a full explanation, you might fairly ask me why I married with this drawback.  I did not know of it, but my wife believed I did.  We were both most cruelly deceived, it does not matter now.  She is condemned to a loveless, joyless life; so am I. With a wife beautiful loving, young, I must lead a most solitary existence—­I must see my name die out for want of heirs—­I must see my race almost extinct, my life passed in repining and misery, my heart broken, my days without sunshine.  I repeat that it is a sad fate.”

“It is indeed,” agreed the earl—­“and such a strange one.  Are you quite sure that nothing can be done to remedy it?”

“Quite sure,” was the hopeless reply.

“I can hardly understand the need for separation, seeing that the wife herself is blameless.”