"You showed me the letter. She gave me the same advice long ago."
"It is the right thing to do. Paula loves you. Natalie is lost to you. You do not know where she is; she does not intend that you shall know. She will not marry you now, even though death were to free her from the bonds she has assumed. She is right. Mind, Mark, I say no word of censure. I believe in her purity as I do in Paula's—but the world will talk. That which she has done cannot be kept secret, but her motive must remain a secret. Had the man died——"
"Enough!" he said sternly. "You say you believe in her as you do in Paula. No shadow of suspicion can ever cross my mind or yours. We need not consider the world——"
"But, my son, she will consider it. She does consider it. Her letter to me shows it. That letter was no easy one for a woman to write. Do you think she would even indirectly have disclosed your secret to me, except that she believed it necessary for your good? I do not doubt, Mark, that she has renounced your love even to you. Is it not unworthy to——"
"To love without hope? Perhaps it is. But since the fact is not generally known—here, as in some other things, the sin consists in being found out." He laughed. "You know you didn't find out; you were told."
"Yes; in the hope, I verily believe, that the disclosure would wound you and so kill your love."
"It wounded, certainly," he said bitterly. "Perhaps, if you give it time, the wound may yet be as fatal as you wish—as she wished." He laughed again very grimly. "Strange creatures, women," he said. "Their self-sacrifice includes the sacrifice of every one but self."
"That is cruel! From no possible point of view can her life be a happy one."
"How you quarrel about a man and cling together against a man!" he said, smiling down upon the lady, who had no other answer than the shrug which, when it moves feminine shoulders, implies that masculine density is impenetrable. His smile broke into laughter.
It aroused her secret indignation; but encouraged her, too. If he could laugh, her case was not hopeless.