"Yes, Miriam, I am Mrs. Latham. But my husband is dead. He died only a month ago!"
"It is only a year since Gerald died."
"Poor Gerald—did he forgive me for leaving him?"
"He never forgot—I cannot say whether he forgave. Your name was last on his lips—not mine!"
"My name? And you were so good to him? Miriam, will you forgive?"
"I—yes, I forgive. It was him you wronged more than me, for I could guide my life—he couldn't. He was weak, helpless—little more than a child. And you led him further astray, Hilda. And yet he loved you as he never loved me, even at the end."
"Oh, Miriam, you don't know what I've suffered. I am not so wholly to blame as you think. You don't know what my life was—from the merest child I was neglected. I was never taught to care save for myself. I was pampered, spoiled, allowed to run utterly wild. My only teaching was to put a value on myself—to see to it that I secured the biggest prize in marriage. You cannot afterwards undo the evil done by an up-bringing such as mine. And my instincts were never for good, Miriam. I secured through John Dundas all that I craved, riches, position, ease, gaiety. And when I lost them, remember, I lost what was to me all. Gerald loved me I know; yes, and I loved him as much as it was in me to love any man. I could not resist the temptation that assailed me. But I was prepared to do my duty by him, Miriam. I would have gone on loving him. I would have been with him at the end—"
"Why, then, did you leave him?"
"Because he forced me to. He drank so horribly. He was like a madman most of the time. He gambled recklessly—more than once he struck me. I stayed by him as long as I could, and then one night he treated me so cruelly I had to leave him. I was afraid for my life. I had already met Mr. Latham. He fell in love with me, and he urged me all the time to leave Gerald. But I would not have left him, I swear to you, if he had not treated me so violently. Mr. Latham was rich I know, and Gerald then had little money left. But it was not that that took me. I was in daily, hourly terror of him. Oh, Miriam, you cannot imagine how he was. That night I tell you of, I left him. I went with Mr. Latham to Italy, and there we were married. He was more than good to me, far better I know than I deserved. I was prepared to make amends for my past life, and at least to be a good wife to him. But fate determined, I suppose, that I should suffer, for he died—died when we had been married only a few months. And now I am alone, and oh, so wretched, Miriam, so terribly unhappy."
She burst into tears.