“Yes, to pay a sacred debt. That is what they called it—a sacred debt. Ah! would to Heaven I had died with my mother rather than lived to be the creditor of that fatal debt! Heaven knows how soon I would have absolved both father and son from its responsibility had I known it was only for that cause I was to be married,” said Lilith, with a sigh so heavy that it moved the pity of the lady, who took the girl’s hand and held it kindly as she said:
“I do suppose that a marriage contracted under such circumstances must, sooner or later, end just as yours has. And, my poor child, since it was doomed to end so, it is better that it should sooner than later. Yet—I cannot imagine that you could have given any provocation for an act so extreme as his repudiation of you; and I feel deeply interested to know just what precipitated the event.”
“Dear madame, I can only tell you that it was a misapprehension on his part, which, could he have loved and trusted me, need not have ended in the fatal quarrel that has separated us forever. You understand now. I need not go into the painful details of that scene.”
“No, you need not. And so you left your home secretly?”
“Oh, no, not secretly. For when at last he told me that he had never loved me; that he had only married me to please his father; that he should go away from his home and never return while I—desecrated—the house with my presence, then I answered that I must not be the means of driving him from his ancestral home; that I must depart.”
“Heavens! What did he say to that?”
“With a look full of scorn and wrath, he bade me quit his sight. I left the room, went to my chamber and prepared for my journey. I went away that night, leaving a farewell letter on my dressing-bureau.”
“And no one saw you go?”
“No one. It was late on a winter night, and I went forth alone.”
“Poor child! And this accounts for the story of your mysterious disappearance and supposed death.”