"My wife!"
She shuddered, but did not lift her eyes.
She shrank into herself, as it were, and her eyes fell lower than before.
"Is it thus we two meet at last?" he demanded, in low, stern, measured tones, pitched to meet her ear alone. "Is it thus I find you, after all that has passed between us, bearing the name and title of another man who calls himself your husband, oh! shame of womanhood!"
"They told me our marriage was not legal, was not binding!" she panted under her breath.
"It should have been religiously, sacredly binding up on you as it was upon me, until we could have made it legal. It is amazing that you could have dreamed of marriage with another man!" muttered Volaski.
"But they told me you were dead. They told me you were dead!" she gasped, as if she were in her own death throes.
"Even if they had told you truly—even if I had been dead—dead by the hand of your father—could that circumstance have excused you for rushing with such indecent haste to the altar with another man? It was but a poor tribute to the memory of the husband of your choice (if he had been dead) to marry again within six months."
"Oh, mercy! Oh, my heart! my heart! They forced me into that marriage, Waldemar! They forced me into that marriage! I was as helpless as an infant in the hands of my father and my mother!" she panted, in a voice that was the more heart-rending from half suppression.
"Valerie! love! wife!" murmured Volaski, in low and tender tones, as he essayed to take her hand.