"And to be a governess to this young lady you abandoned your own child—only to be governess. Can you say to me, Ada, that it was only to be a governess to this young lady?"
There was feeling in his voice, something of stern dignity—perhaps at the moment he did feel—she thought so, and it gave her hope.
She had not removed her hands; they still covered her face, and a faint murmur only broke through the fingers—oh! what cowards sin makes of us! That poor woman dared not tell the truth—she shrunk from uttering a positive falsehood, hence the humiliating murmur that stole from her pallid lips—the sickening shudder that ran through her frame.
"You do not answer," said the husband, for Leicester was her husband—"you do not answer."
She had gathered courage enough to utter the falsehood, and dropping her hands, replied in a firm voice, disagreeably firm, for the lie cost her proud spirit a terrible effort, and she could not utter it naturally as he would have done.
"Yes, I can answer. It was to be the young lady's governess that I went—only to be her governess!—penniless, abandoned, what else could I do?"
He did not believe her. In his soul he knew that she was not speaking the truth; but there was something yet to learn, and in the end it might be policy to feign a belief which he could not feel.
"So after wasting youth and talent on his daughter—paling your beauty over her death-bed and his—this pitiful man could leave you to poverty and toil. Did he expect that I would receive you again after that suspicious desertion?"
"No, no. The wild thought was mine—you once loved me, William!"