“Well, and was that so terrible a prospect to you? As you know, I asked nothing better; and it chanced that I was able to obtain a promise of employment abroad which would have supported both of us in comfort. Or—answer me truly, Joan—did you, on the whole, as he told me, think that you would do better to marry Mr. Rock?”
“If Mr. Rock said that,” she answered, looking at him steadily, “he said what he knew to be false, since before I married him I told him all the facts and bargained that I should live apart from him for a while. Oh! Henry, how can you doubt me? I tell you that I hate this man whom I have married for your sake, that the sight of him is dreadful to me, and that I had sooner live in prison than with him. And yet to-day I go to him.”
“I do not doubt you, Joan,” he answered, in a voice that betrayed the extremity of his distress; “but the thing is so appalling that it paralyses me, and I know neither what to do nor to say. Do you want help to get away from him?”
She shook her head sadly, and answered, “I can escape from him in one way only, Henry—by death, for my bargain was that when the time of grace was ended I would come to be his faithful wife. After all he is my husband, and my duty is towards him.”
“I suppose so,—curse him for a cringing hound. Oh, Joan! the thought of it drives me mad, and I am helpless. I cannot in honour even say the words that lie upon my tongue.”
“I know,” she answered; “say nothing, only tell me that you believe me.”
“Of course I believe you; but my belief will not save you from Samuel Rock, or me from my remorse.”
“Perhaps not, dear,” she answered quietly, “but since there is no escape we must accept the inevitable; doubtless things will settle themselves sooner or later. And now there is another matter of which I want to speak to you. You know your father-in-law is very ill, dying indeed, and yesterday he telegraphed for me to come to see him from London. What do you think that he had to tell me?”
Henry shook his head.
“This: that I am his legitimate daughter; for it seems that in marrying your wife’s mother he committed bigamy, although he did not mean to do so.”