She owned that she had thought of him.

“Is there no hope that your heart will ever incline toward me?”

“I daren’t consult my heart. If I had only to consider my own feelings—” She stopped.

“What else have you to consider?”

“My past life—how I have suffered, and what I have to repent of.”

“Has your married life not been a happy one?” he asked.

“Not a happy one—in the end,” she answered.

“Through no fault of yours, I am sure?”

“Through no fault of mine, certainly.”

“And yet you said just now that you had something to repent of?”