“You may possibly not remember—­it unhappily produced no impression on you at the time—­that I felt, and expressed, more than once on that occasion, a very great dislike to your passing me off on the people of the inn as your wife.  It was necessary to my being permitted to remain at Craig Fernie that you should do so.  I knew this; but still I shrank from it.  It was impossible for me to contradict you, without involving you in the painful consequences, and running the risk of making a scandal which might find its way to Blanche’s ears.  I knew this also; but still my conscience reproached me.  It was a vague feeling.  I was quite unaware of the actual danger in which you were placing yourself, or I would have spoken out, no matter what came of it.  I had what is called a presentiment that you were not acting discreetly—­nothing more.  As I love and honor my mother’s memory—­as I trust in the mercy of God—­this is the truth.

“You left the inn the next morning, and we have not met since.

“A few days after you went away my anxieties grew more than I could bear alone.  I went secretly to Windygates, and had an interview with Blanche.

“She was absent for a few minutes from the room in which we had met.  In that interval I saw Geoffrey Delamayn for the first time since I had left him at Lady Lundie’s lawn-party.  He treated me as if I was a stranger.  He told me that he had found out all that had passed between us at the inn.  He said he had taken a lawyer’s opinion.  Oh, Mr. Brinkworth! how can I break it to you? how can I write the words which repeat what he said to me next?  It must be done.  Cruel as it is, it must be done.  He refused to my face to marr y me.  He said I was married already.  He said I was your wife.

“Now you know why I have referred you to what I felt (and confessed to feeling) when we were together at Craig Fernie.  If you think hard thoughts, and say hard words of me, I can claim no right to blame you.  I am innocent—­and yet it is my fault.

“My head swims, and the foolish tears are rising in spite of me.  I must leave off, and rest a little.

“I have been sitting at the window, and watching the people in the street as they go by.  They are all strangers.  But, somehow, the sight of them seems to rest my mind.  The hum of the great city gives me heart, and helps me to go on.

“I can not trust myself to write of the man who has betrayed us both.  Disgraced and broken as I am, there is something still left in me which lifts me above him. If he came repentant, at this moment, and offered me all that rank and wealth and worldly consideration can give, I would rather be what I am now than be his wife.

“Let me speak of you; and (for Blanche’s sake) let me speak of myself.

“I ought, no doubt, to have waited to see you at Windygates, and to have told you at once of what had happened.  But I was weak and ill and the shock of hearing what I heard fell so heavily on me that I fainted.  After I came to myself I was so horrified, when I thought of you and Blanche that a sort of madness possessed me.  I had but one idea—­the idea of running away and hiding myself.