There was another silence still more prolonged, and when he looked again into the flushed face and glistening eyes he was saying, “I have always loved you.  I know now I loved you from the first, from the day when I leaned over you to take little Sta from your lap and saw your tenderness for him in your eyes.  I could have kissed you then, dearest, as I do now.”

“And,” she said, when she had gained her smiling breath again, “you will always remember, George, that you told me this before I told you anything of her.”

“Her?  Of whom, dearest?” he asked, leaning over her tenderly.

“Of Kitty—­of your wife,” she said impatiently, as she drew back shyly with her former intense gaze.

He did not seem to grasp her meaning, but said gravely, “Let us not talk of her now.  Later we shall have much to say of her.  For,” he added quietly, “you know I must tell her all.”

The color faded from her cheek.  “Tell her all!” she repeated vacantly; then suddenly she turned upon him eagerly, and said, “But what if she is gone?”

“Gone?” he repeated.

“Yes; gone.  What if she has run away with Van Loo?  What if she has disgraced you and her child?”

“What do you mean?” he said, seizing both her hands and gazing at her fixedly.

“I mean,” she said, with a half-frightened eagerness, “that she has already gone with Van Loo.  George!  George!” she burst out suddenly and passionately, falling upon her knees before him, “do you think that I would have followed you here and told you what I did if I thought that she had now the slightest claim upon your love or honor?  Don’t you understand me?  I came to tell you of her flight to Boomville with that man; how I accidentally intercepted them there; how I tried to save her from him, and even lied to you to try to save her from your indignation; but how she deceived me as she has you, and even escaped and joined her lover while you were with me.  I came to tell you that and nothing more, George, I swear it.  But when you were kind to me and pitied me, I was mad—­wild!  I wanted to win you first out of your own love.  I wanted you to respond to mine before you knew your wife was faithless.  Yet I would have saved her if I could.  Listen, George!  A moment more before you speak!”

Then she hurriedly told him all; the whole story of his wife’s dishonor, from her entrance into the sitting-room with Van Loo, her later appeal for concealment from her husband’s unexpected presence, to the use she made of that concealment to fly with her lover.  She spared no detail, and even repeated the insult Mrs. Barker had cast upon her with the triumphant reproach that her husband would not believe her.  “Perhaps,” she added bitterly, “you may not believe me now.  I could even stand that from you, George, if it could make you happier; but you would still have to believe it from others.  The people at the Boomville Hotel saw them leave it together.”