“We must never forget that poor, brave little drudge, dear,” she whispered fondly. “Don’t look so serious. All that is nothing to us.”
“Nothing?” he said, as he bent down, fascinated by the beautiful eyes which gazed so tenderly into his.
“Nothing. I am glad they came, to show you how little cause for compunction you have. You see what she is—what the wretched woman is who gives me her sickly kisses and calls me her friend.” She clung to him, and passed her soft white hand over his brow as she looked into his eyes, her voice growing gentle like the cooing of some dove, as she almost whispered—
“I am going now for awhile, but when I am gone don’t think of me as a mad, reckless woman, abandoned to her passion, false to her husband and her oaths. I never loved but you, Armstrong: I shall never love another. Try and think of me as one who was forced into a marriage with that despicable wretch who in one week taught me to loathe him; and till I saw you I was the wretched being whose life was void, a kind of gilded doll upon which he hung his jewels, and whom he paraded before his guests, while in private my life was a mockery. Wife? By law, yes, till we can break the tie, and then you will take me to your heart, dear, away from all that black despairing life, to a new one all delight and joy. For I shall be with you, my brave, noble—husband! May I call you husband then?”
She sank upon her knees, clasped her arms about him, and laid her cheeks against his hands, murmuring softly—
“If you will take me for your wife, dearest. If not, I should be always happy as your slave.”
He would have been more than man if he had not raised the beautiful appealing woman to his breast, and held her tightly there.
“I love you—I love you!” she murmured, as her soft, swimming eyes gazed in his, “and it is misery to leave you now. But there is all that new joy in my heart to keep me waiting and hopeful till I come again.”
“But the risk—for you?” he said.
“Risk?” she laughed softly. “You will protect me. I must go now, and you will wait till your poor Italian model is here once more—she whom you love so well.”