Dunstan Renshaw.
I don’t ask you to pity the girl I have ill-used or the girl I have married—that you must do. But, wretch that I am, you might do a greater injustice than to pity me.
Hugh Murray.
Pity you!
Dunstan Renshaw.
Murray, a month ago I married this child. Perhaps, then, I was really in love with her; I hardly know, for loving had been to me like a tune a man hums for a day and can’t recall a week afterwards. But this I do know—I have grown to love her now with my whole soul!
Hugh Murray.
[Contemptuously.] Oh!
Dunstan Renshaw.
I married her, as it were, in darkness; she seemed to take me by the hand and to lead me out into the light. Murray, the companionship of this pure woman is a revelation of life to me! I tell you there are times when she stands before me that I am like a man dazzled and can scarcely look at her without shading my eyes. But you know—because you read my future—you know what my existence has become! The Past has overtaken me! I am in deadly fear! I dread the visit of a stranger, or the sight of strange handwriting, and in my sleep I dream that I am muttering into her ear the truth against myself! And, oh, Murray, there is one thing more that is the rack to me and yet a delight, a paradise and yet a torment, a curse and yet a blessing, my wife—God help me!—my wife thinks me—Good!