“‘I thought I loved him; but in my ignorance and inexperience I must have been misled by fancy and imagination to mistake admiration and enthusiasm for love; but the hallucination was strong enough to make me forget every duty I should have remembered and held sacred.’
“‘Tell me all about your courtship and marriage, Elfrida!’ he said.
“And then I told him, as faithfully as I have set it down here for you, Abel, every particular—of Saviola’s introduction to me; of the growth of our acquaintance and its development into that false hero-worship which I mistook for love; of our runaway marriage, in which Angus Anglesea aided as my guardian, saying that since he had no power to prevent the marriage he would see that it was solemnized legally and properly.
“‘God bless the boy!’ broke in my father, with so much fervor that I had not heart to tell him afterward what a villain Anglesea had proved himself—in the sequel—to be.
“Then I told him of our travels; of my letters of contrition to him; of my disappointments in not hearing from him; of the gradual opening of my eyes to the true character of my husband; of my grief, wonder and humiliation at discovering that my imaginary hero, martyr, patriot, humanitarian, was no better than a professional gambler and adventurer! Still, though his life degraded himself and me, though I could no longer adore and worship him as I had done when I believed in him—still I bore with him because I really thought that he loved me, that with all his faults he was faithful to me. In this belief I lived and hoped until the end came. Then, indeed, the last scales fell from my eyes. I know that if he had ever loved me, he had ceased to do so now.
“‘Poor fellow!’ murmured my father, as if he judged Saviola much more leniently than I could do. And again the impression came to me that there was an afterthought lurking in his mind, incomprehensible to mine.
“‘Why do you pity him, father dear? I should think you would feel nothing but resentment and animosity to him.’
“‘My dear, when one has seen so much suffering as I have, one must learn mercy. He ran away with my daughter and married her, to be sure; but he was young and in love, and you were living only with careless governesses. I could have forgiven him. He took to the gaming table until hazard became the passion of his life. He was lucky in cards, but I never heard that he was dishonest. And—without knowing his near relations to you and myself—I have heard a good deal of him lately.’
“‘Father, you seem to be really defending him.’
“‘Am I, my dear? Then it is because he can no longer defend himself.’