“I was married three weeks ago. It cannot be true.”
“I am here to tell the truth,” the other replied.
“But it is so—so ironic. To allow me to start a new life—a beautiful life—just as the night is coming. Why, it is diabolical; it is not just; the cruelty of it is fiendish.”
A spot of gleaming red stained each of the speaker's thin cheeks. He clenched his hands together, riveting his gaze on the doctor, as he went on:—
“Can't you see what I mean? I had no idea—I had not the faintest suspicion of what you say. And I have had a very hard struggle. I have been poor and quite friendless. I have had to fight, and I have lost much of the good in my nature by fighting, as we often do. But at last I have won the battle, and I have won more. I have won goodness to give me back some of my illusions. I had begun to trust life again. I had—”
He stopped abruptly. Then he said:—
“Doctor, are you married?”
“No,” the other answered; and there was a note of pity in his voice.
“Then you can't understand what your verdict means to me. Is it irrevocable?”
Gerard Fane hesitated.