"Don't!" she called out in a strangled voice. "Lorin, we must not love each other! And I have deceived you, for I am a married woman!"
CHAPTER XXIX.
"You can't know what you are saying," Lorin said, gently, after a pause. "You forget what has passed between us—you forget that you have again and again sworn that I am the first man you have ever loved, that my kisses are the first ever laid on your lips; and now you tell me, without any warning, that you are another man's wife——"
"No, Lorin—I never said so! It would not be true. Just four years and a half ago I went through a ceremony at a registry-office. Remember I was only just sixteen and very unhappy at home, and I had no idea of the real value of my action. I had only known this man for three weeks, and had seen hardly anything of him. He was my father's friend, and—my father is dead, Lorin; but he was not a very good man. The two arranged the whole thing. It was a bargain, for a certain sum of money depended upon an immediate marriage; and this sum they agreed to divide between them. Of all this I knew nothing; but we were very poor and in debt, and I was very lonely after my dear mother's death, and had to do rough servant's work. And when this man came and bought me sweets and pretty things to wear, and took me and all my childish friends out for treats and excursions, he seemed a sort of fairy prince, and I was quite proud of the idea of getting married and coming away to England, where I had been so happy with my mother as a child. But, within an hour of the marriage, I heard them quarrelling—my father and this man; and he—my husband—spoke of me already as a drag and a bore to him. I was to be made to lie and cheat if I did not help him in his schemes to get money, and to be subjected to ill-treatment if I did not obey him. And, as I listened to all this, I suddenly changed, and from a child grew into a woman. Escape was the one and only thought in my mind. By myself I came away to England, to the house of an old school-fellow of my mother's, who kept a school at Norwood. I taught there until she left for Australia to get married; and then I answered Mrs. Vandeleur's advertisement and became her companion. There—now you know all my life, and I am not deceiving you any more!"
Her voice broke as she finished speaking, and she sank on a chair by the window, gazing out, with tear-laden eyes that saw not, upon the dreary snow-covered square. Every line of her figure looked drooping and forlorn, and Lorin's heart ached with pity as he beheld her.
"Dear," he whispered, gently, "was it quite fair to wait until now to tell me all this?"
"You don't understand," she returned, looking at him in a helpless, frightened manner. "When I first knew you, I thought I would not speak one word of this until after—after we were married."
"After we were married? Laline, you can't know what you are saying! If your husband is alive, our marriage would not be legal."
"I can never make you understand," she said, leaning her elbows on a little table before the window and burying her face in her hands. "I was dense enough, mad enough, to believe you were my husband! That is why I loved you so readily—that is why I let my heart go out to you—that is why I encouraged you to make love to me! Oh, I have been a fool! But you would try to forgive me, I know, if I could tell you what I am suffering now."