"We did. Go back a month or two earlier. By a most monstrous deception I was brought here. I was told first that it was in order to further some political object, which I did not believe; next, to help him in getting the command of this money—some women, I said, easily lose their sense of honour and of truth when they want to please their lovers. As for marriage, he declared for the hundredth time that there was but one woman in all the world whom he would marry—myself. Now do you understand? He had deceived me. Very well, then I would deceive him. At first my purpose was to await in the church the coming of the bride and expose the character of the man. Since she was not coming I would take her place."
"What? It was you, then—you—you?"
"Yes, Jack. I was the woman you saw at the rails. I had a pink silk cloak like that of Molly; I am about the same height as Molly. I wore a domino as had been arranged. You took me for Molly."
"But—if you were the bride——"
"I was the bride. I am the Countess of Fylingdale—for my sins and sorrows—his wretched wife."
"But you would be revenged, and yet you suffered this monstrous fraud."
"I was revenged. Yet—why did I say nothing? Did I not say that you could never forgive me. Well, I have no excuse, only I said that women, like me, with nothing to do, sometimes go mad after a man and for his sake cast away honour and care nothing for shame and ill-repute. I say, Jack," she repeated, earnestly, "that I make no excuse—I tell you nothing but the plain truth. Lord! how ugly it is!"
I said nothing, I only stood still waiting for more.
"When I took off my domino in the vestry, my lord, with the man Purdon, only being present, he was like a madman. That I expected. After raging for a while and crying out that he was now ruined indeed, and after cursing Mr. Purdon for not destroying the registers, he listened to Mr. Purdon's advice that we should consider a way out of it. Accordingly, in my lodgings, the man Purdon, who is the greatest inventor and encourager of every evil thing that lives, set forth the ease with which this marriage could be claimed, unless there was any obstacle such as sudden illness which might be proved to have made Molly's presence impossible. In other words, we were to assure the unfortunate Molly that she was already married, and we were to act as if that was the fact. We ascertained without trouble that she had not left the house that morning. How? We sent the music to congratulate the bride, and the captain sallied forth in his wrath and drove them off."
"And to this you consented, out of your passion for the man?"