"Yes, I told him that," said Ronald. "I understood you so well, Lina, I knew just what you would say and feel. I told him to rest quite easy about that."
Lina thanked him with a grateful glance, quickly withdrawn.
"He had sinned against you, too," she said, tremulously. "That dreadful wound! You forgave him, Ronald?"
"Freely," he replied; and then they were silent a moment, and Lina looked at the softly falling snow through the windows, and Ronald looked at her steadily and gravely.
He did not flinch as his eyes marked the scarred, discolored skin that covered the once delicately lovely face.
After a pause Ronald said, gravely:
"Huntington had a confession to make to you, Lina."
"A confession?" she repeated, turning her dark eyes from the window to look at him with grave surprise.
"Yes," he said. "You must have wondered, Lina, often and often, what mysterious discovery caused him to give you up in the very moment when, by violence he had made you his bride."
"I have wondered over it often. It was the happy cause that delivered me from a life more bitter than death," she replied, with a shudder.