Grace put her hands before her face at these kind words, and he saw the tears trickle between her white fingers. He began to wonder, and to feel uneasy. But the brave girl shook off her tears, and manned herself, if we may use such an expression.
"Then, sir," said she, slowly and emphatically, though quietly, "did you not think it strange that I should say to my father, 'I don't know?' He asked me before you all, 'Are you a wife?' Twice I said to my father—to him I thought was my father—'I don't know.' Can you account for that, sir?"
The Colonel replied, "I was so unable to account for it that I took Julia
Clifford's opinion on it directly, as we were going home."
"And what did she say?"
"Oh, she said it was plain enough. The fellow had forbidden you to own the marriage, and you were an obedient wife; and, like women in general, strong against other people, but weak against one."
"So that is a woman's reading of a woman," said Grace. "She will sacrifice her honor, and her father's respect, and court the world's contempt, and sully herself for life, to suit the convenience of a husband for a few hours. My love is great, but it is not slavish or silly. Do you think, sir, that I doubted for one moment Walter Clifford would own me when he came home and heard what I had suffered? Did I think him so unworthy of my love as to leave me under that stigma? Hardly. Then why should I blacken Mrs. Walter Clifford for an afternoon, just to be unblackened at night?"
"This is good sense," said the Colonel, "and the thing is a mystery. Can you solve it?"
"You may be sure I can—and woe is me—I must."
She hung her head, and her hands worked convulsively.
"Sir," said she, after a pause, "suppose I could not tell the truth to all those people without subjecting the man I loved—and I love him now dearer than ever—to a terrible punishment for a mere folly done years ago, which now has become something much worse than folly—but how? Through his unhappy love for me!"