“Ah, for me! that is one way of putting it. Like all those spurious sacrifices, if one examined a little deeper. You have had the best of it, anyhow.”
“All this,” she said, with a tone of despair, “has been said so often before. It was not for this you insisted on my coming. What is it? Tell me quickly, and let me go before I am found out. Found out! I am found out already. I dare not ask myself what they think.”
“Whatever they think you may be sure it is not the truth. Nobody could guess at the truth. It is too unnatural, that I should be lurking here in wretchedness, and you—”
“But you are comfortable,” she said quickly. “Jane told me—”
“Comfortable according to Jane’s ideas, which are different from mine. What I want is to know what you are going to do; what is to become of me? Will you do me justice now, at last?”
“Oh, Edmund, what justice have you made possible? What can I do but implore you to go? Are not you in danger every day?”
“Less here than anywhere; though I understand there have been inquiries made; the constable in the village shows a degree of interest—”
“Edmund,” she cried, seizing him by the arm, “for God’s sake, go!”
“And not bring shame upon you, Madam? Why should I mind? If I have gone wrong, whose fault is it? You must take that responsibility one time or other. And now that you are free—”
“I cannot defy the law,” she said, with a miserable moan. “I can’t deliver you from what you have done. God knows, though it had been to choose between you and everything else, I would have done you justice, as you say, as soon as it was possible. But to what use now? It would only direct attention to you—bring the—” She shuddered, and said no more.