“Mrs. Thornton, you have often puzzled me with a likeness to somebody seen before I met you. But I had no suspicion of the truth until I saw you in the cemetery at your father’s grave. I am no eavesdropper, but was so placed that I had to see and hear, and I knew then that you were Mildred, come back to us, not as we hoped you would come, but——”
His voice was getting shaky, and he stopped a moment to recover himself. Then, taking from his side pocket the handkerchief he had carried with him since the night he found it, he passed it to her, saying:
“I picked it up after you left the yard. Have you missed it?”
“Yes,—no. I don’t remember,” she replied, taking the handkerchief, and drying her eyes with it. Then, looking up at Hugh, while the first smile she had known since her husband died broke over her face, she continued: “I am glad you know me; I have wanted to tell you and mother and everybody. The deception was terrible to me, but I had promised and must keep my word.”
“Then Mr. Thornton knew? You did not deceive him?” Hugh asked, conscious of a great revulsion of feeling towards the woman he had believed so steeped in hypocrisy.
“Deceive him?” Mildred said, in some surprise. “Never,—in any single thing. I am innocent there. Let me explain how it happened, and you will tell the others, for I can never do it but once. I am so tired. You don’t know how tired,” and she put her hands to her face, which was white as marble, as she commenced the story which the reader already knows, telling it rapidly, blaming herself more than she deserved and softening as much as possible her husband’s share in the matter.
“He was very proud, you know,” she said, “and the Leaches were like the ground beneath his feet. But he loved me. I am sure of that, and he was always kind and good, and tried to make up for the burden he had imposed upon me. Yes, my husband loved me, knowing I was a Leach.”
“And you loved him?” Hugh asked, regretting the words the moment they had passed his lips, and regretting them more when he saw their effect upon Mildred.
Drawing herself up, she replied:
“Whether I loved him or not does not matter to you, or any one else. He was my husband, and I did my duty by him, and he was satisfied. If I could have forgotten I should have been happy, and I tell you truly I am sorry he is dead, and if I could I’d bring him back to-day.”