She had been ready to take him as her husband in spite of all she remembered and all she heard against him, but now that she knew his record to be absolutely clear she loved him the more. Tears rushed from her eyes as she realised that the happy life they had planned together could never be theirs. She must banish him from her sight; or, if he would not obey her entreaties and commands, she must herself pass out of his life and begin a new career in some place out of his reach and ken.
Until she met him, the prospect of a busy existence uncheered by the love of a man had not appeared specially formidable to Laline. But now her future life seemed to stretch before her as an arid plain, cheerless, and dreary, the mere thought of which made her shudder.
"I cannot live without him!" she sobbed. "I cannot live without his love! Why did he come into my life at all, if it was only to offer me a taste of happiness which I must never hope for again? It is too hard, too cruel!"
Rebellious, passionate thoughts rose in her mind, thoughts at which her own soul took fright. Through the fog the church-bells pealed out, faint and muffled; but Laline grew calmer at the sound. Her early training had been deeply religious, and now, in this hour of loneliness and despair, she sought comfort and refuge from her distracting grief in the service of the church.
Hastily slipping on her hat and cloak and the furs which Lorin had bought for her on the preceding day, she hurried down the stairs and out of the house unnoticed by any of the other inmates. To her aching heart and tired brain the quiet of the sacred building, the dignified yet simple words of the service she knew so well, and the sermon, taken from a beautiful passage in St. John's Gospel, proved infinitely soothing, and the mere act of supplication brought with it a sense of strength and coming help.
She had prayed to be taught what was her duty, and rising from her knees at the close of the service, tired out with the emotions of the day and very pale, her eyes red with long weeping and her lips quivering in the endeavour to keep back her tears, she passed out of the church with the rest of the congregation.
A walk of a very few minutes led to the opening of St. Mary's Crescent, and Laline was hastening thither, a little dazed by the fog and darkness after the brightly-lighted church, when some one laid a hand upon her shoulder.
"At last, my darling!"
She had known by his touch, which thrilled her with delight, that it was Lorin even before she had seen or heard him; and in the first moment of joy at the unexpected meeting she turned on him a face radiant with love and welcome. The light from a gas-lamp at the side of the pavement fell full upon her, and Lorin started back.
"My darling, how pale you are! And you have been crying! What has troubled you?"