"I know it--I am sure of it," she said, "but, oh, Norman, how can I release you?"
"There is happily no question about that," he answered.
He saw her rise from her seat and stretch out her arms.
"What have I done," she cried, "that I must suffer so cruelly? What have I done?"
"Madaline," said Lord Arleigh, "I do not think that so cruel a fate has ever befallen any one as has befallen us. I do not believe that any one has ever suffered so cruelly, my darling. If death had parted us, the trial would have been easier to bear."
She turned her sad eyes to him.
"It is very cruel," she said, with a shudder. "I did not think the duchess would be so cruel."
"It is more than that--it is infamous!" he cried. "It is vengeance worthier of a fiend than of a woman."
"And I loved her so!" said the young girl, mournfully. "Husband, I will not reproach you--your love was chivalrous and noble; but why did you not let me speak freely to you? I declared to you that no doubt ever crossed my mind. I thought you knew all, though I considered it strange that you, so proud of your noble birth, should wish to marry me. I never imagined that you had been deceived. The duchess told me that you knew the whole history of my father's crime, that you were familiar with every detail of it, but that you wished me never to mention it--never even ever so remotely to allude to it. I thought it strange, Norman, that one in your position should be willing to overlook so terrible a blot; but she told me your love for me was so great that you could not live without me. She told me even more--that I must try to make my own life so perfect that the truest nobility of all, the nobility of virtue, might be mine."
"Did she really tell you that?" asked Lord Arleigh wonderingly.