"Love is blind not only to faults but to all the world. We were discovered and he was blamed. The great name of the institution might be compromised—its business suffer. He resigned.
"Then came the terrible misstep; he asked me to go with him and I consented. We should have gone home; he was afraid of the legal effects of marrying a minor, and so we went the other way. Not stopping in New York we turned northward, away from the revengeful south; from police surveillance, and somewhere we were married. I heard them call us man and wife, and then I sank again into my dream.
"It does not seem possible that I could not have known the name of the place, but I was no more than a child looking from a car window and taken out for meals here and there. I had but one thought—my husband.
"We went to Canada, then abroad. Gaspard had saved considerable money; his home was in Silesia and thither we went; and that long journey was the happiest honeymoon a woman could know."
"I spent mine in Europe wandering from point to point. I understand," said Mrs. Montjoy, gently.
"Oh, you do understand! We reached the home and then my troubles began. My husband, the restraints of his professional engagement thrown off, fell a victim to dissipation again. He had left his country to break up old associations and this habit.
"His people were high-class but poor. He was Count Levigne. Their pride was boundless. They disliked me from the beginning. I had frustrated the plans of the family, whose redemption was to come from Gaspard. Innocent though I was, and soon demanding the tenderness, the love, the gentleness which almost every woman receives under like circumstances, I received only coldness and petty persecution.
"Soon came want; not the want of mere food, but of clothing and minor comforts. And Gaspard had changed—he who should have defended me left me to defend myself. One night came the end. He reproached me—he was intoxicated—with having ruined his life and his prospects." The speaker paused. With this scene had come an emotion she could with difficulty control; but, calm at last, she continued with dignity:
"The daughter of Gen. Albert Evan could not stand that. I sold my diamonds, my mother's diamonds, and came away. I had resolved to come back and work for a living in my own land until peace could be made with father. At that time I did not know the trouble. I found out, though.
"Gaspard came to his senses then and followed me. Madame, can you imagine the sorrow of the coming back? But a few months before I had gone over the same route the happiest woman in all the to me beautiful world, and now I was the most miserable; life had lost its beauty!