She bowed her head.
A long pause followed. Mr. Wallace let her hands go and rose from his chair.
"Heaven forgive you," he said, solemnly, "for playing with a good man's love! It was an ill deed, whatever prompted it? My poor boy!"
"Mr. Wallace," cried Laline, springing up and facing him, "don't misjudge me! When I met Lorin, I believed myself free to be his wife. It is only quite recently—within the past few days, indeed—I found out that——"
"That your husband was alive?"
"Yes."
"And you have to return to him?"
"No, no—not for the whole world! I——Please—please don't ask me any questions, Mr. Wallace! My marriage was a terrible mistake! I had heard and seen nothing of the man I married for several years; I knew of nothing to prevent my marriage with Lorin. Then, by sheer accident, I learned that that other man was still alive. I cannot tell you how much I hate him; and he never cared for me for one moment, and has forgotten my existence. But he lives, and I cannot marry Lorin!"
"But why tell me all this, my child? Why not go to Lorin, and let him hear the truth from your own lips?"
"No, no—I can't; it is quite impossible! I have made up my mind what to do. I must go away from here, to some place where he cannot follow me; and then you must break it to him. Only remember one thing. You must tell him I loved him with all my heart and soul. Tell him I never knew what love was until I met him. Tell him that my marriage was a miserable farce, that within one hour of the ceremony I was far away from my husband, and that I never went back to him again. Be sure to tell him that. Tell him it is of no use to think of me any more. I don't want him to leave off loving me, but he must love me as though I were dead, for I must be dead to him. I shall leave England, and he must not attempt to find me or follow me. I trust to his honour to respect my wishes, for it is of no use pretending to be better or stronger than I am, Mr. Wallace. I love Lorin so dearly that, if I were to see him or write to him, I don't know what I might say or do. You see it is a great temptation. I am tied to a man I hate, who does not even know that I am alive; yet, because of those words we spoke together years ago when I was too young to understand the meaning of what I did, I must break my own heart and that of the man I love and live lonely and uncared for perhaps all my life. To me it seems bitterly, cruelly hard! Yet I would not for anything let Lorin fall from my ideal of him; and, if we were together, and he asked me to become his wife, in spite of the law, I could not be sure of myself, and perhaps I might say 'Yes.' Now do you understand why you must tell him all this and not I?"