‘When will you let me see him, Nancy?’
She did not smile, but there was a brightening of her countenance, which she concealed. Tarrant stepped to her side.
‘Dear—my own love—will you try to forgive me? It was all my cursed laziness. It would never have happened if I hadn’t fallen into poverty. Poverty is the devil, and it overcame me.’
‘How can you think that I shall be strong enough to face it?’ she asked, moving half a step away. ‘Leave me to myself; I am contented; I have made up my mind about what is before me, and I won’t go through all that again.’
Tired of standing, she dropped upon the nearest chair, and lay back.
‘You can’t be contented, Nancy, in a position that dishonours you. From what you tell me, it seems that your secret is no secret at all. Will you compel me to go to that man Barmby and seek information from him about my own wife?’
‘I have had to do worse things than that.’
‘Don’t torture me by such vague hints. I entreat you to tell me at once the worst that you have suffered. How did Barmby get to know of your marriage? And why has he kept silent about it? There can’t be anything that you are ashamed to say.’
‘No. The shame is all yours.’
‘I take it upon myself, all of it; I ought never to have left you; but that baseness followed only too naturally on the cowardice which kept me from declaring our marriage when honour demanded it. I have played a contemptible part in this story; don’t refuse to help me now that I am ready to behave more like a man. Put your hand in mine, and let us be friends, if we mayn’t be more.’