“You ought to be, but you are not the wife of Alexander Lyon.”
“Not his wife—not Alick’s wife! Oh, Alick, Alick! my own! my dear! my love! my husband! I am your wife! I am—I am!” cried the wronged and wretched young creature, with a sob and a gasp, as she sank back among her cushions.
Dick could have wept for company, but he only cursed Alick and pitied her, while he watched and waited for her to recover herself.
Ah! how many tears she had shed in her short married life of less than a year!
Presently her anguish broke forth in a sharp and bitter cry:
“Why, oh why, do you say such terrible things to me, Mr. Hammond?”
“Because it is absolutely necessary that you should know them,” he answered, kindly.
“Have you no pity—none—that you drive this sorrow-like a sword into my heart?” she cried.
“Heaven knows how much pity and how much respect I have for you,” he said.
“Oh, what—oh what,” she sobbed, wringing her hands in her agony, “oh, what makes you say that I am not his wife—not my dear Alick’s wife? When I told you—I told you how I was married; with a special license, by a regularly ordained minister, and in the presence of a dozen witnesses? How can you say, in the face of all this, that I am not Alick’s wife?”