"Why did you visit her?"
"I can hardly tell you. I hardly know myself: want of thought—or of occupation, probably."
"You surely did not wrong her?" was the next whispered question, as she turned her face from him.
"Wrong her! Had you known her, you could not have admitted the possibility of the idea," he answered, resentment in his tone now. "She has been carefully reared, and is as innocent as you are."
"Who is she?—what is her name?"
"Adelaide, let us rather forget the subject. I have told you I loved her not: and I should not have mentioned this at all, but that I can think of nothing else to which that diabolical letter can have alluded. Believe me, my own wife"—and he drew her to his bosom as he spoke—"that I have not done you so great an injury as to marry where I did not love."
"Oh," she exclaimed, wringing her hands, and extricating herself from him, "that this cruel news had not been given me!"
"My love, be comforted—be convinced. I tell you it is a false letter."
"How can I know it is false?" she lamented—"how can you prove it to me?"
"Adelaide, I can but tell you so now: the future and my conduct must prove it."