"No," answered Marion resolutely, and withdrawing her hands. "I mean it. This is our good-bye, and this must be all, quite all. Do you think I would ever accept such a position as that? That I could ever feel as though the stain were wiped out and the disgrace forgotten by such a poor formality as a divorce? No! Let me speak! Do not interrupt me yet. If I had known six months ago that John was still alive, I would have done it, and I should have felt perhaps, that it meant something, that I was really free, that the world would forget the worst part of my story, and that I could come to you as myself, not as the wife of John Darche, forger and escaped convict. But I cannot do it now. It is too late, now that he has come back. No power on earth can detach his past from my present, nor clear me of his name. And do you think that I would hang such a weight as that about your neck?"
"But you are wrong," answered Brett, earnestly. "Altogether wrong. The life you have lived during these last months has proved that. Have you ever heard that any one in all the world you know has—I will not say dared—has even thought of visiting on you the smallest particle of your husband's guilt? Oh, no! They say the world is unkind, but it is just in the long run."
"No. People have been kind to me—"
"No. Just, not kind."
"Well, call it what you will," Marion answered, speaking in a dull tone which had no resonance. "People have overlooked my name and liked me for myself. But it is different now. A few good friends may still come, the nearest and dearest may stand by me, but the world will not accept without a murmur the man who has married the divorced wife of a convict. The world will do much, but it will not do that. And so I say good-bye again," she continued after a little pause, "once more this last time, for I will not hamper you, I will not be a load upon you. I will not live to give you children who may reproach you for their mother's sake. We shall be what we were—friends. But, for the rest—good-bye!"
"Marion! Do not say such things!"
"I will, and I must say them now, for I will not give myself another chance," she answered with unmoved determination. "What has been, has been, and cannot be undone. I did wrong months ago on that dreadful morning, when I let you guess that I might love you. I did wrong on that same day, when I prayed you for my sake to help John to escape, when I made use of your love for me, to make you do the one dishonourable action of your life. I have suffered for it. Better, far better, that my husband should have gone then and submitted to his sentence, than that I should have helped him—made you help me—"
"At the risk of your own life," said Brett, interrupting her.
"There was no risk at all, with you all there to help me, and I knew it."
"There was," said Brett, insisting. "You might have burned to death. And as for what I did, I hardly knew that I was doing it. I saw that you were really on fire and I ran to help you. No one ever thought of holding me responsible for what happened when my back was turned. But I would have done more, and you know I would. And now you talk of injuring me, if you divorce that man and let me take your life into mine! This is folly, Marion, this is downright madness!"