“It would have been better to have undeceived me then; to have told me that the hopes I was cherishing for the sake of the unborn child were worse than vain.”
“I did not judge so,” he replied. “The excited state you then appeared to be in, would have precluded your listening to any sort of reason.”
Her heart beat a little quicker; but she stilled it.
“You deem that it was not in reason that I should aspire to be the wife of Sir Francis Levison?”
He rose and began kicking at the logs; with the heel of his boot this time.
“Well, Isabel, you must be aware that it is an awful sacrifice for a man in my position to marry a divorced woman.”
The hectic flushed into her thin cheeks, but her voice sounded calm as before.
“When I expected or wished, for the ‘sacrifice,’ it was not for my own sake; I told you so then. But it was not made; and the child’s inheritance is that of sin and shame. There he lies.”
Sir Francis half turned to where she pointed, and saw an infant’s cradle by the side of the bed. He did not take the trouble to look at it.
“I am the representative now of an ancient and respected baronetcy,” he resumed, in a tone as of apology for his previous heartless words, “and to make you my wife would so offend all my family, that—”