“Does she know your true story?”
“No; she knows me only as Elizabeth Wyvil. And by that name only must I be known, since my husband has forbidden me to use his.”
“My dear, I do not wish to part with you. But tell me, since you have told me the fact, why did your husband part with you?”
“Madame, you yourself gave the reason. I was not ‘fit’ to be his wife,” said Lilith, mournfully.
“My dear, I should never have said that if I had known you,” replied the baroness, who, notwithstanding her own disappointed love for Tudor Hereward, still felt her heart drawn in pity towards his young discarded wife—the youthful stranger to whom she had been so strongly attracted at first sight, and whom in after intercourse she had grown to love.
“But I am surprised that you, who are so different from the girl whom I had imagined as Hereward’s hastily married wife—you who are gifted with rare intelligence and sensibility—should have condescended to marry him at such very short notice. How was it?” gently inquired the baroness.
The answer came low and soft:
“Because I loved him, and believed he loved me.”
“You believed he loved you. Had he ever told you so?” demanded the lady.
“No, never. Tudor Hereward never spoke an untruth.”