She could not and did not comprehend the baseness of the man she loved.
The end and aim of her poor, wrecked life was to win him back to the allegiance of which he had wearied so soon.
Although she dared not disregard his injunction not to reveal their marriage, she followed him about as often as her engagements would permit, trying to keep track of his movements.
When he was away from the city, she wrote him long love-letters, over which he laughed in heartless amusement.
It was one of these letters that he had pretended to read to Geraldine on the bridge at Alderson, claiming that it contained news of Hawthorne's marriage.
It was this woman who had prevented him from accompanying Geraldine to Newburgh, by threatening to reveal his fatal secret.
At length, driven almost mad by his fiendish conduct, she had thrown caution to the winds, and caused his arrest on the stage that night for desertion.
But she would have trembled with fear could she have heard his threats against her that night as he raged up and down his prison-cell, execrating her as the cause of his losing pretty Geraldine forever.
"A few more hours and my peerless girl would have been mine, all mine! Oh, to miss happiness by so slight a chance, it is horrible, and dearly shall that woman pay for this!" he swore.
But he knew that his wrath was futile, for she would have all the proofs of his conduct ready to cover him with shame in the morning.