John Dinsmore’s lips twitch. He essays to speak, but the words he would utter refuse to come from his lips. He is like one suddenly stricken dumb.
“John,” she goes on in that same sweet, piteous voice that reaches down through his heart to the farthest depths of his soul, “you loved me with all the strength of your nature once, but that you had the power to cast me so utterly from your thoughts, from the moment you discovered my unworthiness, I never for a moment doubted. Oh, Heaven! it was the thought that you had utterly forgotten me, while I, bound to another, loved you more than ever, that caused me so much misery. Bound to a man I hated, and loving you, alas, too late! with all the strength of my heart! Think of it, John Dinsmore, and if a heart still beats in your bosom, you cannot withhold your forgiveness. When my husband died I—I felt as though I had begun a new life, with the fetters thus removed from me.”
“Your husband is dead, Queenie?” gasps John Dinsmore.
She flushes deeply, and answers with deep agitation:
“You might have known my—my—husband was dead, or I would never have made the confession to you which I have just now made.”
“I had not heard of Raymond Challoner’s death,” he answered, trying in vain to steady his voice.
“You are in grave error if you think I married Raymond Challoner,” answered Queenie, quietly. “I—I married his uncle—an old man of three score years and ten—at the urgent request of my parents, who would give me no peace day or night. I—I married him to save my father from financial ruin, believing him to be a millionaire. When he died, a few days ago, I learned that he was on the verge of bankruptcy. It is a just punishment to me—a just punishment. But I have gained more than the wealth of the world could purchase—my freedom. Oh, my love of other days, do you understand that I am free now to be wooed and wed? Surely you still care for me, John Dinsmore. You are only trying my love not to tell me this and set my heart at rest.”
As she utters the words she clasps both of her hands tightly about his arm and looks up into his face, which has grown strangely pale.
“Hush! hush!” he whispers, tearing himself free from the light hold of those lovely white hands. “I cannot suffer you to utter another word, madam. I will forget what you have said, for I ought not to have listened to it. It is my turn to ask you now to listen, and what I would say is this: There is an impassable barrier between you and me, Queenie.”
“A barrier!” she gasped. “Surely there is nothing in this world that can separate us two a second time.”