“It is my belief,” she said, very slowly, speaking as if deliberately—“it is my firm conviction that he is secretly married.”
Lois shrank back once more. Such an idea had not occurred to her; but she could not refuse to see the probability of the suggestion. She was unable to speak. Somehow, ice seemed to fall upon her heart.
“Secretly married!” she at length echoed faintly. “Why should he be ashamed or afraid to acknowledge such a thing?”
“That remains to be seen,” replied Miss Dormer. “But I believe such to be the fact. I have read and heard of many cases where gentlemen, handsome and proud as Captain Desfrayne, have married persons whom they had every reason to be ashamed of. But he may not be ashamed of his marriage, my dear. There are many reasons why people conceal that they are married.”
Long after Blanche quitted her, Lois remained gazing from her open window, painfully meditating. He was perhaps, then, already married?
Tired, agitated, weak from fright and from the strain on her nervous system, the young girl rested her head upon her hands, and a few tears trickled over her fingers. She started up.
“What folly!” she muttered. “Why do I dwell so much on the words he spoke to-night? What does it signify? I do not care for him. He is a stranger to me, and likely to remain such. When I have been duly informed of the reasons why he is unable to assist me in doubling my fortune by marrying me, there will be an end of the matter. I am almost sorry now I did not agree to Lady Quaintree’s suggestion, and return to London to-morrow. Probably he will send a letter to her ladyship by his servant some time to-morrow afternoon. I do not wish to marry him. I will never marry any one I do not love, and I have never yet seen any one I could really care for. I will go to bed, and get to sleep, as I ought to have done about two hours ago.”
She did go to bed; but the effort to sleep was quite an abortive one. Feverishly she turned from side to side, unable to rid herself of the memory of those eloquent glances, those deeply regretful broken words, those pathetic tones.
Until at last she arrived at the conclusion that she would willingly have forfeited her newly acquired fortune never to have heard of or seen Paul Desfrayne.