"You know well enough what I mean, child--exactly what I say. Mr. Arthur Preston took great interest in you--was in love with you, in point of fact. Is not that so?"
"He said so, John; but his actions belied his words. No man who had any real honest love--nay, more, I will go farther, and say respect, for a girl--could have spoken or acted towards me as he did."
"Why, Alice," said John Claxton, looking with surprise at her flushed cheeks, "you never told me anything of this before. Why have you kept it secret from me?"
"Because I know, John," said Alice, laying her hand upon his shoulder, "that, however outwardly calm and quiet you may appear to be, however sensible and practical you are in most matters, you have a temper which, when anything touching my honour or my dignity is involved, is quite beyond your control. I have seen its effects before, John, and I dreaded any repetition of them."
"Then why do you tell me now?"
"Because we are far away from York, John, and from Arthur Preston and his friends, and there is no likelihood of our seeing any of them again; so that I know your temper can be trusted safely now, John; for, however much it may desire to break out, it will find no object on which to vent itself."
"This conversation and conduct, then, of Mr. Arthur Preston were matters, I am to understand, in which your honour and dignity were involved, Alice?"
"To a certain extent, John, yes," faltered Alice.
"I should like to know what they were," said John Claxton. "I put no compulsion on you to tell me. I have never asked you since our marriage to tell me anything of your previous life; but I confess I should like to know about this."
"I will tell you, John," said Alice; "I always intended to do so. It is the only thing I have kept back from you; and often and often, while you have been away, have I thought, if anything happened to you or to me--if either of us were to die, I mean, John--how grieved I should be that I had not told you of this matter. Arthur Preston pretended he loved me; but he could not have done so really. No man who is wicked and base can know what real love is, John; and Arthur Preston was both. Some little time before I knew you, he made love to me--fierce, violent love. I had not seen you then, John; I had scarcely seen any one. I was an unsophisticated country girl, and I judged of the reality of his love by the warmth of his professions, and told him I would marry him. I shall never forget that scene. It was one summer's evening, on the river bank just abreast of Bishopthorpe. When I mentioned marriage he almost laughed, and then he told me, in a cynical sneering way, that he never intended to be married unless he could find some one with a large fortune, or with peculiar means of extending his uncle's business when he inherited it; but that meanwhile he would give me the prettiest house within twenty miles. I need not go on. He would not make me his wife, but he offered to make me his mistress. Was it not unmanly in him, John? Was it not base and cowardly?"