She did not speak, but her great black eyes grew larger, and her face grew suddenly so deathly white that he thought she must be fainting.
“Lally! O Lally!” he cried to her, in an anguished, broken voice. “Thank God! I have found you! Oh, my darling, my little wife, whom I have mourned as dead!”
He knelt down before her, in the shadow of a projecting rock, the tears streaming over his face, and his eyes regarding her in wild imploring. So a devotee might have knelt to his patron saint, feeling unworthy to approach her, but longing and praying with his whole soul for forgiveness and mercy.
Lally felt her soul melt within her.
“Oh, Rufus!” she gasped, in a choking whisper.
He put up his arms to enfold her. She shrank back, not with loathing, but with a sudden dignity, a sort of majesty, that awed him.
“You must not touch me, Rufus,” she commanded. “I am not your wife—”
“You are! You are! Before God, I declare that you are my wife—”
“Hush, Rufus! You wrote to me that I was not your wife. Don’t you remember? You said that our marriage was ‘null and void.’”
“I thought it was. My father told me so!” cried Rufus. “O Lally, I have been a poor, weak-souled wretch. I am not worthy of your love. I should have stood by you, instead of basely deserting you through my own personal cowardice. My father threatened to have me indicted for perjury, in swearing that we were of age at the time of our marriage, and I—I was afraid. You can never respect me, Lally, nor love me again, I know, but if you knew how I have suffered you would pity me.”