“No, I know. I am not so ignorant as you think me. I have learned a great deal since the night you came up to me at Lady Blankyre’s.”
“For God’s sake, spare me!” he pleaded.
“I know that I am your wife, the Marchioness of Trafford, one of your family, and that I must think of you and them. I can’t go away.” She remembered the lake at Belfayre and the duke’s words. “The wife of the Marquis of Belfayre can’t do that. It would be better for me to kill myself.”
He uttered not a word.
“But do not be afraid. That would bring scandal, would it not? and I will not do that. I—I care for them—the duke and Lilias—too much, and I will think of them—though they did not think of me.”
He put out his hand imploringly, then let it fall to his side.
“I will go,” he said in a whisper.
Her head drooped.
“Yes; thank you.”
The simple words tortured him more keenly than anything she had as yet said.