“Heard? Marian’s all well, I hope?”
He did not answer, and after a searching look at him, she went on:
“She’s not ill? If she is, why didn’t you send for me, or come for me?”
“No, no, no, it’s not that,” he broke in, vehemently; “it’s something far worse than that. I scarcely know how to tell you. She’s—gone away—away from me.”
“Gone away? What do you mean, Edward?”
“We weren’t happy together; at least, she wasn’t happy; she went away and she’s living a life of sin with another man. Oh, what am I to do?”
“This is terrible. My poor boy, my poor boy.”
She went quietly over to him, and putting her arm round his shoulder, drew his head gently to her. Then his pent-up suffering broke its bonds, and he sobbed bitterly as he rested there, near that kind heart to which no one in sorrow had ever appealed in vain.
“My poor boy, why didn’t you come to me sooner?—instead of fighting it out all alone, though not alone, for I know you have faith in the great Comforter.”
He held her hand tightly as he began, at first brokenly, to tell her all that had happened. She knit her brows as she listened, and when he ceased speaking, drew her hand gently from him, and drew back.