Those words "our newly-made husbands" gave rise to thoughts in Laure's own sad heart that she would willingly have stifled if she had possessed the power to do so. They recalled memories that (when she had not been too dazed--almost too delirious--to dwell upon them during the horrors of the past six weeks) she had endeavoured to dispel. Memories of the noble Englishman who had sacrificed his existence for her--nay! if that villain Desparre had spoken truth, his very life--and whose sacrifice had obtained for her no more than the state of misery in which she was now plunged.
"Yet," she whispered, half to herself, half aloud, so that Marion heard her words; "yet, almost I pray that he may be dead----"
"Your husband?" the other interrupted. "You pray that he may be dead! He who gave up all for you--the man whom you love. Whom, Laure, you know you love?" For still Marion insisted, as she had insisted often enough before during the journey, that Laure had come to love Walter Clarges.
"Yes--I even pray for that--sometimes," the girl answered. "For--for if he lives, how doubly vile must he deem me. What must he think of me, supposing--supposing that Desparre lied--that he was not dead--that he was not even met by that villain and his myrmidons--that the whole story was false!"
"What should he think!" exclaimed Marion, not, in truth, grasping Laure's meaning. "What should he think?"
"What? Why think that but I used him for my own selfish purposes to escape from marriage with Desparre, as, God forgive me, was the case; and that, once he had left me alone in his home, I next escaped from him. How can he know--how dream of what befell me? Who was there to tell him of what happened in that room? Even I, myself, know nothing of what occurred from the time I fell prostrate at Desparre's feet, until I awoke a prisoner in that--that prison, which I only left for this," and she cast her eyes despairingly around upon her miserable companions and upon the flying inhabitants of the stricken city who still went on and on, their one hope being to leave the place behind.
But the brave heart, the strong mind of Marion Lascelles--neither of which could be subdued by even that which now encompassed them--would not for an instant agree to such hopelessness as her companion expressed. Instead, she cried:
"Nay, nay. He would not do so. Believe that Desparre lied when he said that your husband was dead, since how could such a creeping snake as that slay such as he was, one so noble. Believe he lived, and, thus living, returned to find you gone. But, in doing so----"
"He would hate, despise, loathe me. He would deem me what I was, base and contemptible, and so, God help me! endeavour to forget. He would remember nothing except that he had parted with his freedom for ever to save so vile a thing as I."
"Again I say nay, Laure," and now Marion's voice sank even lower, her tone became more deep. "Laure, I know the hearts of men--God help me, too!--I have had cause to know them--bitter cause, brought about sometimes by my own errors, sometimes by their own wickedness. And I--I tell you, you have judged wrongly. This man, this Englishman, loved you with his whole heart and soul; he loves you still."