“What is the matter with you?” cried Judith, taking hold of her. “Something dreadful has happened!”
“Dreadful enough for me!” replied Jacqueline, white and dry-eyed.
“What is it?” Judith was not easily frightened, but she trembled as she spoke.
“Everything!” answered Jacqueline. “In the first place, I have left Freke. That broke my heart!”
“Left Freke!”
“Yes. I didn’t go to Aunt Steptoe’s. I got off at the station and Freke was there. He took me to a minister’s and got him to marry us. The man could hardly read and write, and he said something about a license; but Freke gave him fifty dollars, and he performed the ceremony.”
Judith caught hold of her, to see if she were really in the flesh, talking in this way.
“Don’t hold me so hard, Judith. I will tell you all I can; but I feel as if I should die, I am so weak and ill—” and she suddenly began to cough violently. Judith ran and got her a glass of wine. The first idea in her mind was, not the poor, deluded child, but Throckmorton.
“But where is Freke—and your father and mother?—O Jacqueline, Jacqueline!”