“Virgie, my beloved, I never had but one wife,” said Sir William, gravely.
She seemed turning to stone at those words.
Had there been some terrible mistake after all? Had she lost eighteen years of happiness when she might have been his loved and loving wife?
“I know,” he went on, eagerly, “all about that wretched blunder in the newspapers, when my cousin, William Heath, was mistaken for me. He was married to Miss Margaret Stanhope soon after my return to England, but the notice in the papers read as if I had been married instead. They have a son. Oh, Virgie! is it possible that you have believed Willie was my boy?” he asked, light beginning to break in upon his mind.
A moan of pain broke from the pale woman before him.
“But they told me, Lady Linton wrote; ah! those cruel letters,” she faltered, in a voice of anguish.
“Who told you? what has my sister——” Sir William began, but that brave, long suffering heart, could bear no more as it realized all too late, that the bitter past need not have been, and she sank unconscious at his feet before he could complete his sentence.
Sir William sprang forward with a cry of fear, and raised her tenderly in his arms.
He laid her bright head upon his breast; he bent and kissed the fair, pale face with passionate, trembling lips, and held her to his throbbing heart with a clasp that claimed her all his own, in spite of the cruel decree that had parted them for so many years.
But Virgie did not lose herself for more than a moment; the fall partially restored her, and she began to realize what was passing even though she had not strength to assert herself. She knew that she was lying upon the bosom of the man whom she had always loved, and it seemed like a blessed repose to rest there, and to feel his sheltering arms around her after the cares and struggles of the past.