“I loved a woman years ago, and she was faithless. She left me for another man. My wife ran away with my best friend.”
“Your wife?”
“Yes. Oh, I meant to tell you everything before you married me, Diane—only, I was putting it off as long as possible. I left America because of that, and came out to this country. Then, one day, after many years, I found myself up here living next door to the very man and woman who had been false to me—for whose sake I had been divorced in America so that they might marry and be happy.”
“Divorced?”
“And they weren’t happy after all. She loved him but he was neglecting her, and she turned to me again for help. I found a kind of cynical amusement in helping her out. So there you have the whole story, Diane—not a pretty one, God knows, but, in this instance, not a guilty one so far as I am concerned.”
But the girl stood stammering at him, one word on her lips. “Divorced?”
“You must believe that I meant to conceal nothing from you, Diane. I have already spoken to de Rivas and his wife and told them that you must know—though no one else need ever suspect. And if you choose it, if you will still take me in spite of my sins—and, darling, I believe you will, we’ll get out of this country and go back to my own—”
“But, Maryon,” she broke in, despairingly, “you do not seem to understand that this ends everything between us. I am a Catholic—do you not realise?”
“A Catholic? I don’t care what you are—”
“But don’t you know that we do not recognise divorce—that in my eyes you are still her husband—will be her husband until one of you dies?”