"I did; and found that she only married me because she thought that I had money."
"So you should have had, and a great deal of it, but that Alpenny managed to collar the estates. But you loved her."
"I did not, save in the way one loves such women at an early age."
"Oh!" sneered Ruck; "she was perfectly respectable."
"I should not have married her else," said Vivian quickly, and not daring to glance at Beatrice. "I have nothing to say against her, save that she was heartless, and left me within six months. But I repeat that I was young and foolish at the time, and that she schemed to marry me. I fell into her toils, and bitterly have I had to pay for doing so; but for her I should have long ago have married Miss Hedge."
"I don't think Alpenny would have permitted that, Paslow."
"Perhaps not; but he is dead, and cannot harm me now."
"The evil that men do lives after them," scoffed Ruck. "Alpenny had the power when alive; someone else may have the power now."
"Not you, at all events, Ruck."
Beatrice rose quickly. "Am I to hear the rest of the story?" she asked Ruck. "Is this all you have to bring against Mr. Paslow?--that while a young man he was entrapped into marriage by an adventuress?"