There was a sharp agony in her voice, and her head dropped on her hands, and her fair bosom rose and fell like a tempest-tossed sea.
Encircling her with his arm, he drew her down until her white face lay hidden in his breast, and then pressing his lips to the dark ripples of hair sweeping against his cheek, he murmured, in tenderest whisper:
“Tell me now, Maude, and fear not; for nothing you can say will convince me you are not as pure and unsullied as the angels themselves. What is this terrible secret, sweetest love?”
“Oh, my dear lord, every word you speak, every caress you give me, makes my revelation the harder!” she passionately cried. “And yet it must be made, even though you should spurn me from you in loathing after. Listen, my lord. You think me Lady Maude Percy?”
“Yes, dear love.”
“That is not my name!”
“What, Maude?”
“That is not my name. No; I am not mad, Lord Villiers, though you look as if you thought so. I have been mad once! You and all the world are deceived. I am not what I seem.”
“What, in Heaven’s name do you mean? What then are you?”
“I was a wife! I have been a mother! I am a widow!”