"Of course--O yes, of course. Didn't give you my address, did she?"
"She did not."
"She didn't? O, then you've come on your own hook, being some relation or friend of hers, to see what you could bounce me out of."
"I am no relation of hers. I have not seen her half a dozen times in the course of my life."
"Then what the deuce brings you here?"
"I'll tell you as shortly as I can. When you deserted this woman--not caring what became of her; leaving her to sink or swim as best she might--she slipped from one point of wretchedness to another, until, at the bottom of her descent, she was discovered by a very old friend of mime perishing of cold and hunger--dying in the streets!"
Lionel, whose face when Bowker commenced speaking had been averted, turned here, and gave a short sharp shudder, fixing his eyes on Bowker as he proceeded.
"Dying in the streets! My friend rescued her from this fate, had her nursed and attended, and finally--ignorant of the chief fact of her life, though she had confided to him a certain portion of her story--fell so desperately in love with her as to ask her to become his wife."
"To become his wife!" cried Lionel; "and she consented?"
"She did."