“Ah, shame upon you to make such an observation!” cried she.
“I hope I am not mistaken. But tell me, has this proud earl ever invited me to his grand house?”
The young wife’s face became suffused with a deep blush. She hardly knew what reply to make.
“Oh, I am convinced he has not,” said Gatliffe.
“No, he has not.”
“He need not be afraid. I am not good enough for him, and shall never trouble him,” he exclaimed, with something like bitterness in his tone.
Aveline was pained. She could not find it in her heart to make her husband acquainted with the insurmountable barrier which separated him from the earl—a barrier which nothing could remove.
It seemed to her that her very soul was rent in twain.
She longed, with an intensity of longing, for the wealth, the position, the grandeur, which she had left behind at Broxbridge.
It seemed so cruel that she should be deprived of all these glorious advantages because she loved her husband, and was constrained from a sense of duty to remain with him.