‘You must not say that. How could anything I might do for my father’s sake be accounted a sacrifice?’
Oscar Boyd did not answer. Lady Dimsdale’s white slender fingers were busy with the arrangement of her flowers, and he seemed absorbed in watching them.
‘And you too married?’ she said at length in a low voice.
‘I did—but not till more than a year after I read the notice of your marriage in the newspapers. Life seemed no longer worth living. I cared not what became of me. I fell into the toils of an adventuress, who after a time inveigled me into marrying her.’
‘Your marriage was an unhappy one?’
‘Most unhappy. After a few months, we separated, and I never saw my wife again. Her fate was a sad one. A year or two later, a steamer she was on board of was lost at sea; and so far as is known, not a soul survived to tell the tale.’
‘A sad fate indeed.’
The subject was a painful one to Oscar Boyd. He crossed to the window, and stood gazing out for a few moments in silence.
Lady Dimsdale’s thoughts were busy. ‘What is there to hinder him from saying again to-day the words he said to me fifteen years ago?’ she asked herself. ‘If he only knew!’
‘How strange it seems, Laura, to be alone with you again after all these years!’ He spoke from the window.