"Oh, Mary! I never was brute enough to marry you, knowing—my wife to be alive. You are innocent—as I am—of that.... More than a year ago I saw her picture in a New York paper. She was on the stage—she'd come to America—perhaps to look for me.... For some reason she had clung to her own name—perhaps she expected me to recognise her, for she was well known then. I knew her cruel smile, her smirking innocence, her shameless invitation. And I—I was a bigamist.... You were not my wife.... After that I went to the dogs. It was bad enough to have murdered her, even for the cause I had; it was worse to realise what I had done to you.... I married you too hastily, Mary. I wanted to stifle that gurgling breath that was always ringing in my ears, to feel that I was bound at last—everlastingly—to a woman I could safely cherish.... I didn't love you for yourself in those days, Mary, as I have learned to since. And by the time I knew you were not my wife I loved you too much to let you love me until—until somehow I was purged, I didn't figure how. If separation must come to us, I didn't want you to suffer as I would. I wouldn't let you love me."
He bowed his head in his hands, and his great shoulders shook.
"That is why I've—I've played the brute, Mary. God knows it hurt me more than it did you. But—but it was coming easier lately. A man can't lower himself to that, even for virtue's sake, without sinking a step. Of late I've sunk several. One was jealousy. You weren't mine, but I wouldn't let anyone else have you. I hated that man—and now I know why. I've hated everyone, even the men who look at you in town. I think I've been going mad for love of you, Mary.... And now—now——"
He was reading the clipping again.
"What have you there?" she asked, and her voice was dead, hopeless.
"Dorothy Swaine is dead. And I am free—free!"
He rose to his feet. A radiant light was in his eyes, and his arms stretched out to her.
"Mary, do you understand? I am free. We can look the world in the face——"
But in Mary Merrill's face was no answering light.
"Jim! Jim!" she wailed. "Why—oh, why didn't you trust me? Why didn't you tell me a year ago?"