“Your husband is a good fellow,” he rejoined. “I am not.”
“You are not?” she asked wearily.
“No. What do you think was the reason that, years ago, I said we could never be married, and that we must forget each other?”
“I cannot tell. I supposed it was some duty of which I could not know. There are secret and sacred duties which we sometimes do not tell, even to our nearest and dearest... but I said we should not speak of these things, and we must not.” She rose to her feet. “My husband is somewhere near. I will call him. There are so many things that men can talk of-pleasant and agreeable things—”
He had risen with her, and as her hand was stretched out to ring, stayed it. “No, never mind your husband just now. I think he knows what I am going to say to you.”
“But, oh, you must not—must not!” she urged.
“Pardon me, but I must,” was his reply.
“As I said, you thought I was a good fellow. Well, I am not; not at all. I will tell you why I left you. I was—already married.”
He let the bare unrelieved fact face her, and shock her.
“You were—already married—when—you loved me,” she said, her face showing misery and shame.