"There was harm in it, although I did not think so at the time!" she went on, bitterly. "For she married him secretly--and no sooner had she done so, than he was taken up by the police for something or another--and ran away. She never heard anything of him until the other day, when he turned up. Oh, poor, unhappy girl! What is to be done for her? Cannot you understand that I, who helped to her undoing, am miserable?"
"My dearest child, we cannot go about the world bearing the consequences of other people's folly. It is not common sense, we have plenty of troubles of our own!" he said, almost chidingly. He felt just a little hurt that his love had not been strong enough to balance her vicarious suffering. The terrible truth that she was speaking of herself never once occurred to him. "Your friend married this man, not you! She must suffer for it. She had better make the best of her bad bargain--and really must not worry you! It is positively inhuman to do so!" He spoke with slight indignation. She shuddered.
"But surely--there must be some way to rid her of him?" she asked, striving with all her might to still her inward anguish, and speak collectedly.
"Oh yes, if she does not shrink from a public scandal," he said, somewhat dryly. "The young lady can apply for a divorce. How long since his desertion? Four years?" He shrugged his shoulders. "She had better employ detectives to find out his doings during those years. But she ought to consult lawyers!--What? She would not do that? Why not?"
"She will kill herself rather than do that--and her death will be on my--soul!" said Joan, solemnly. She looked her lover full in the face. Why was it that at that moment in imagination he seemed to hear a bell tolling and to see a churchyard with a yawning grave--towards which a funeral procession was making its way? He gave a short laugh, which was more a sob. What a grip this girl had upon his emotions!
"What power you have over me, you girlie!" he said, chokingly. "You seemed to make me see all sorts of things ... Darling, if money is of any good to your friend--I should only feel too thankful to be of any help----What? It is of no use?"
"It is of no use!" cried she, in a helpless tone. "None! ... And you mean to tell me--that that few minutes in a registrar's office--can only be undone--publicly--in the divorce court?"
"There is only one other thing that can free her, my dear child--death!" he said, seriously. "People seem to forget that when they rush into matrimony. But--my darling--" he looked anxiously into her half-averted face--"do you mean to say that this entanglement of your friend's is all you have on your mind--all? Joan"--he grasped her hands--"trust me--your husband--almost your husband--anything you may tell me--will be sacred!"
CHAPTER XII
Joan shuddered. To hear that fiat of her lover's--that only death or the divorce court could free a girl in her position from that slight yet deadly tie--and to hear it uttered with such seemingly heartless barbarity--was almost too ghastly to be borne.