"Of course, if I am to know all."
"I told her that at Caryl's we had been much together," she began, with downcast eyes; "that, after a while, he made himself seem much nearer to me by—by speaking of—by asking me about—sacred things—I mean a religious belief." (Here her listener's face showed a quick gleam of angry contempt, but she did not see it.) "Then, after this, one morning in the garden, when I was in great trouble, he—spoke to me—in another way. And when I went away from Caryl's he followed me, and we were together on a train during one day; mademoiselle was with us. At evening I left the train with mademoiselle: he did not know where we went. At this time I was engaged to Erastus Pronando. In August of the next summer I went to West Virginia to assist in the hospitals for a short time. Here, unexpectedly, I heard of him lying ill at a farm-house in the neighborhood; I did not even know that he was in the army. I went across the mountain to see if he were in good hands, and found him very ill; he did not know me. When the fever subsided, there were a few hours—during which there was a—deception, followed by a confession of the same, and separation. He was to go back to his wife, and he did go back to her. It was because I believed that he had so fully gone back to her—or rather that he had never left her, I having been but a passing fancy—that I told Helen all. She suspected something; it was better that she should know the whole—should know how short-lived had been his interest in me, his forgetfulness of her. But instead of making this impression upon her, it roused in her a passion of excitement. It was then that she exclaimed: 'You have robbed me of his love; I will never forgive you'—the second sentence overheard by that listening spy.
"'Helen,' I answered, 'he did not love me. Do you not see that? I am the one humiliated. When I saw you with him at St. Lucien's Church, I knew that he loved you—probably had never loved any one save you.'
"I believed what I said. But this is what she answered: 'It is not true. Since he saw you he has never loved me. I see it now. He married me from pity, no doubt thinking that I was near death. How many times he must have wished me dead indeed! I wonder that he has not murdered me.'
"This, also, Bagshot heard, for Helen had risen to her feet, and spoke in a high, strained voice, unlike her own. I put my arms round her and drew her down again. She struggled, but I would not let her go.
"'Helen,' I said, 'you are beside yourself. You were his wife, and you were happy. That one look I had in church showed me that you were.'
"She relapsed into stillness. After a while she looked up, and said, quietly, 'It is a good thing he is dead.'
"'Hush!' I answered; 'you do not know what you are saying.'
"'Yes, I do. It is a good thing that he is dead,' she repeated; 'for I should have found it out, and made his life a torment. And I should never have died; it would have determined me never to die. I should have lived on forever, an old, old woman, close to him always, so that he could not have you.'
"She seemed half mad; I think, at the moment, she was half mad, owing to the shock, and to the dumb grief which was consuming her.