“I know he is not dead,” she said; “there is no other way that I know.”
“Suppose—my poor girl, try to be brave now, for you will have to know it—suppose your marriage to him was not legal—was no marriage at all?”
Her face got scarlet.
“That is not possible,” she said, “and if it were, it would make no difference. If he did it without knowing—”
“Christine, Christine, he did not! He knew it, my child. Prepare yourself for the very worst. He deceived you wilfully. Oh, Christine, when he was married to you there was an impossible barrier between you. It was such a thing as you could not dream of. Give me your hands and try to feel that your brother bears this sorrow with you.” He caught her other hand also and pressed them both between his own.
“Christine, he was married already. When he married you, he had already a wife and child.”
She wrenched her hands away and sprang to her feet. A low cry broke from her. Noel felt that it was he who had applied the torture, and he saw her racked with agony and utterly heedless of the comfort he had offered, and had fondly hoped to give her.
“Have you proof for what you say?” she cried, her wild look of confusion and terror making her so unlike her usual self that he seemed not to know her. “I will never believe it without the strongest proof. It is too horrible, too awful, too deadly, deadly shameful to be true. Be quick about it. If there is proof, let me have it.”
“Christine, there is proof. I have it here on the spot, but spare yourself, my poor, poor girl. Wait a little—”