Other steps might be taken to prove my worthiness, and how bitterly I repented ever having left her.
Why, the earth was not a desert at all; she might even consent to forgive—to go with me to the Mediterranean, to the dreamy land of the lotus, and there, along the historic Nile, we could coo and make love like a pair of fond turtledoves.
What a blessed vision!
Let Hilary Tempest rest—he had my best wishes to secure the heiress; I wished him joy, so long as his wife was other than my Hildegarde.
“What do you think of me, Hildegarde?” I managed to say, at length.
She would not look at me, much as I desired to see her face.
“It was a strange mistake,” she murmured.
“And yet you must admit, most natural. By accident—I can’t think it was design—you gave me no clew—you only said some man whom you loved and had trusted had deceived you—everything appeared to point to him. Once he was very attentive to you—how was I to know but that you had freed yourself from me and married again?”
“Some women would have done so.”
“That is true.”