'You might take, let us suppose, a cottage by Plymouth Harbour. I have been there; it is a lovely spot, where you would see ships of all sorts sailing by; and just draw your money and live at ease.'
'I suppose so.'
'And nobody there would know you, whence you came, and what your history. They would not care to ask. That would be a new life, and in it all the past would be forgotten.'
'Why do you talk like this to me, George? I cannot bear it. You raise pictures before me which never can exist. All I want is to live on here in my sorrow and difficulties, and just now and then to see you and talk to you, and thus to get refreshed and go back to my duties again with a lighter heart, and strengthened to bear my burden.'
'I do not understand what you mean by duties,' he said. 'You have told me more than once that you have only formally taken Elijah Rebow as a husband, but that he is nothing to you in reality, you do not love him, and have no tie to bind you to him save the farce you went through with him in church.'
'There is another,' said Mehalah in a faint tone.
'What other? What other can there be? You do not look on him as your husband, do you?'
'No I do not, and I never will.'
'You do not even wear a wedding ring.'
'No.'