The next day Griffith found her in tears: he asked her what was the matter. She would not tell him.
"You have your secrets," said she: "and so now I have mine."
Griffith became very uneasy.
For now Mercy was often in tears, and Mrs. Vint looked daggers at him.
All this was mysterious, and unintelligible, and, to a guilty man, very alarming.
At last he implored Mercy to speak out. He wanted to know the worst.
Then Mercy did speak out. "You have deceived me," said she. "Kate is alive. This very morning, between sleeping and waking, you whispered her name; ay, false man, whispered it like a lover. You told me she was dead. But she is alive; and has sent you a reminder, and the bare sight of it hath turned your heart her way again. What shall I do? Why did you marry me, if you could not forget her? I did not want you to desert any woman for me. The desire of my heart was always for your happiness. But oh, Thomas, deceit and falsehood will not bring you happiness, no more than they will me. What shall I do? what shall I do?"
Her tears flowed freely, and Griffith sat down, and groaned with horror and remorse, beside her.
He had not the courage to tell her the horrible truth, that Kate was his wife, and she was not.
"Do not thou afflict thyself," he muttered. "Of course, with you putting that bullet in my hand so sudden, it set my fancy a wandering back to other days."