"Their mother, when they were born, was not my wife."
"Their mother was Lady Maude Kirton," she rejoined, in her bewilderment.
"That is exactly where it was," he answered bitterly. "Lady Maude Kirton, not Lady Hartledon."
She could not comprehend the words; her mind was full of consternation and tumult. Back went her thoughts to the past.
"Oh, Val! I remember papa's saying that a marriage in that unused chapel was only three parts legal!"
"It was legal enough, Anne: legal enough. But when that ceremony took place"—his voice dropped to a miserable whisper, "I had—as they tell me—a wife living."
Slowly she admitted the meaning of the words; and would have started from him with a faint cry, but that he held her to him.
"Listen to the whole, Anne, before you judge me. What has been your promise to me, over and over again?—that, if I would tell you my sorrow, you would never shrink from me, whatever it might be."
She remembered it, and stood still; terribly rebellious, clasping her fingers to pain, one within the other.
"In that respect, at any rate, I did not willingly sin. When I married Maude I had no suspicion that I was not free as air; free to marry her, or any other woman in the world."