Margaret listened with gentle patience and sympathy, feeling, however, that there was some dreadful mistake, and that the girl had mistaken her for some one else.
"I did not know how it was with me until he spoke those words, but when he said them they seemed to show me my own heart, and I knew I loved him in return. Mrs. Stanley, I was not a wicked girl. No! I did not wish to do wrong, and I told him that he must go, and never see me, or speak to me so again, or that I must leave the place that had become a home to me."
"Poor girl!" murmured Margaret unconsciously.
The girl started, looked slightly—very slightly—confused, as a child does when it is interrupted in the middle of its lesson, then, with a heavy sigh, went on:
"But he would not listen to me; he said that he loved me as an honest girl should be loved. I fought against him and my own heart day after day, but he was too strong, and my love made me weak, and though he was rich and powerful, and I knew I was not fit to be his wife, I consented to marry him."
She stopped and eyed her listener.
Margaret, a little pale, but still wondering, gently opened the window to give her some air.
"Would you like to wait—let me get you some wine?" she murmured.
"No, no! I must go on while I have strength—while you will consent to listen," said the girl. "We were married secretly because he did not wish his powerful relatives to know anything of the marriage for awhile, and his prospects might be brighter. We were married"—she sighed—"and I was happy—oh, so happy!" and the tears coursed down her cheeks, and she hid her face in her handkerchief. "We had a pretty little cottage near London, and my husband seemed as happy as I was. He never wanted to leave my side; and so it went on for months, until—until"—she paused and panted—"until one day my husband left me—he said to see his relatives and find out if he could break it to them. He came back silent and moody, and he went away again all next day. Soon he stayed away for days, then weeks, and at last he left me altogether."
Margaret uttered an inarticulate cry of pity and sympathy and indignation.