"You—thought—I—was your husband?" he repeated, slowly, feeling utterly bewildered. "Laline, what can you mean?"
"It was the same name!" she sobbed, weakly, breaking down altogether. "And, when you were shown into this room that evening, I had no idea that there could be another Wallace Armstrong——"
"Good heavens!" he cried. "You cannot mean——It would be too horrible!"
"It is true all the same," she said, raising a white tear-washed face to his. "I am Laline, your cousin Wallace's wife."
"Am I dreaming?" he asked, staring down at her with dilated eyes. "I saw his wife's grave—Wallace and her uncle showed it me——"
"It was all an invention," she said, wearily, "to account for my disappearance. Captain Garth was not my uncle, but my father. I was married to your cousin not a month, but an hour, when I disappeared. They altered the date of the certificate. Oh, you can prove that what I say is true by making inquiries at Boulogne! And now I have confessed; no more lies stand between us and we can just say 'Good-bye!'"
He stood silent for a few moments, looking at her.
"Why should we say 'Good-bye'?" he asked, in a low, unsteady voice. "Does Wallace know of this?"
She shook her head.
"No. And until he came last Sunday, and I, thinking it was you, rushed into his arms, I believed—on my honour I believed, Lorin—that you were my husband. Oh, I cannot tell you how happy the thought made me! I used to whisper to myself, 'I am Laline Armstrong and his wife already.' But I dared not tell you, partly because we were so happy together that I feared to spoil things, and partly because I had heard you speak so harshly of that poor Laline. So I waited, and you never hinted at the existence of a cousin and a namesake; nor did your uncle either——"