“Do not judge me, until you know all. I am not as unworthy as you fear. Do not withdraw your confidence from me.”
He shook his head, and answered, sadly,—
“A wife, yet bereft of your husband’s protection! A wife, wandering among strangers, and a deserter from the home you vowed to cheer! Your own admission cries out in judgment against you.”
He walked to the table and picked up his gloves, and Mrs. Gerome rose and advanced a few steps.
“Dr. Grey, you will come now and then to see me?”
“No; for the present I do not wish to see you.”
“Ah! how brittle are men’s promises! Did you not assure Elsie that you would never forsake her wretched child?”
“Our painful relations invalidate that promise,—cancel that pledge. I can not visit you as formerly; still, I shall at all times be glad to serve you; and you have only to acquaint me with your wishes to insure their execution.”
“Remember how solitary, how desolate, I am.”
“A wife should be neither, while her husband lives.”