“Lilith!” he said, at length.
“Tudor!” she murmured in reply.
“Lilith, is this real? Can this wonder be real, or is it only a phantasm of fever, such as I have often had since I lost you! Oh, Lilith! if this be real, come to me—come to me! Come to me, my own, and let me clasp you to my heart!” he pleaded, holding out his arms.
“Tudor—do you care for me—now?” she inquired, in low and broken tones.
“Do I care for you? Oh, Lilith! so much, so much that your loss has almost destroyed my life! Oh, my love! Oh, my darling. Why, why did you ever leave me? Why, Lilith, why?” he pleaded, earnestly.
“Because,” she murmured very low—“because you told me that you had never loved me; you said that you had married me only to please your dying father; you bade me leave your presence, and you added that in a few days you should leave the house, never to return to it while I should desecrate it with my presence.”
“I! Did I ever utter such words as those to you—to my wife?” exclaimed Hereward, as soon as he had recovered from the shock of hearing them repeated to him.
“Indeed you did, Tudor. They were stamped—burned—too deeply into my memory ever to be forgotten. I do not give them back to you now in reproach, but only in reply to your question as to why I left you. You see now that I had no alternative. I answered you at the time that I must not be the means of banishing you from your patrimonial home; that since one or the other must go, I myself should leave, and leave you in peaceable possession of your home. Something like this I said to you then, Tudor; but you bade me begone, and—I obeyed you. That was all,” she concluded, in a low, gentle tone.
“I was mad—mad! Not one word that I uttered then was true or rational! Oh, Lilith, I am no more responsible for the words and actions of that hour than is the veriest maniac for his ravings!” he pleaded, sinking over and leaning heavily on the back of the chair that supported her slight frame.
“I know, Tudor,” she said, in a humble, deprecating tone—“I know, and I do not criticise you. How could I? The circumstances that surrounded me seemed criminating enough to destroy the faith of the most confiding husband in the world, though he were married to the most faithful wife!”