The man was alone, and did not seem greatly surprised, though he was labouring under great excitement and emotion.
“Call me John Ferguson,” he said, tremulously, without trying to push her off or escape. “Dick Hanford is dead—dead to everyone.”
“Not to me, for I am still your wife,” she excitedly returned. “Oh, Dick! I am bad and weak, and foolish—maybe mad at times—but I love you; and I want to be better, and get back my bairn that they say I nearly killed. I think it would keep me from falling. Oh, give me one more chance! I thought you were both in the grave, and that I had put you there, but when I found you alive a new life seemed to spring up in me.”
“Call me John Ferguson—Dick Hanford is dead,” he still answered, in low husky tones.
He dismissed the cab, and motioned to the broken wife to follow him out to the dark road beyond the city, where they could converse unseen and unheard. He would not say he was married to another woman, nor would he admit that he was Hanford, or this broken woman’s husband; though his grave, earnest manner, his gentleness, and every thrill of his voice, convinced her of his identity, if such convincing had been needed.
“I am nothing to you, or you to me,” he said; and with a pang she noticed that he never even touched her or offered her his arm. “We are strangers; our ways are different—far apart; just as much sundered as if we were both dead, and buried at different sides of the globe. But I have money now, and I am willing to give you that, if it will do you any good, just to relieve my own mind, if you will let me go in peace. Why should we fight over a dead past? Say how much you want, and it shall be yours, though it should be every penny I own.”
“I don’t want money, but the bairn I nearly killed,” cried the weeping wife. “Money would curse me, but the bairn might lift me up. I’m not the first lost woman who has been pulled up to heaven by a bairn’s wee hand.”
“That can never be,” said the husband, decidedly. “More likely you would drag him down with you. Be content with the ill you’ve done. Freddy is dead.”
“I don’t believe it,” screamed the broken wife. “He is hidden from me, not dead. I will make a bargain with you. If your love for me is dead, go your way in peace, but leave me the bairn. I’ll sell my rights for him. Is it a bargain? or must I put you in prison?”
“You can do neither,” was the agitated reply. “You cannot put me in prison, and you cannot touch the boy. You will never see him again. He is far beyond your reach.”