“Yes, I went with him—I was his wife!”
Smith shook his head; a faint smile crept over his mouth; he seemed to doubt her assertion.
Zulima saw it, and her face kindled with indignant passion. “I am his wife!” she said.
“The marriage—was it not secret? was it not almost without witness?”
“Secret? yes; but not entirely without witnesses. I can prove my marriage.”
“You can prove that some ceremony took place; but can you prove that it was a real marriage ceremony? Indeed, have you never had reason to doubt that it was such?”
“Never, sir,” replied Zulima, turning pale, “never!”
“You were very young, very confiding,” replied Smith. “Yet you had some experience in the perfidy of man: this should have made you cautious.”
“Oh, my experience! it had been bitter—terrible!” murmured Zulima, clasping her hands, and gazing on the face of her visitor with a look of wild excitement.
“And yet you trusted again!”