"What can a man do in such cases?" she asked, in a low and meaning tone.
"Marry, I suppose?" he said, after a long hesitation.
"Yes," she answered, quietly.
Silence fell for the space of a few moments. Lance drove on mechanically, drawing his breath hard like a hunted animal.
He roused himself at last and spoke in a cold, constrained, unnatural tone.
"Then I will marry you, Mrs. Vance," he said. "I cannot promise to love you, nay, I can hardly give you the respect I would think the natural due of some other woman. But since I have injured your honor I will give you the shelter of my name."
"Thanks, a thousand thanks," she murmured.
[CHAPTER XXXIII.]
Mr. Shelton did not think it expedient to communicate to Mr. Lawrence the startling fact that the beloved daughter whom he mourned as dead was yet numbered among the living.