‘You will speak to me, you say, but not as my wife? You will speak to me, but not as my wife?’
‘Oh, John! I love you, but whilst Mary lives I am not your wife.’
He regarded me awhile, then extended his arms, as though he would have me run to him that he might clasp me. I could not bear his look, and, sinking upon a chair, I hid my face upon the table. He put his arm around me and caressed me, kissing my hands and stroking my hair, and calling me his precious wife whom God had returned to him. My resolution was a bitter hard one in the face of those endearments! I felt that he loved me. I believed in my heart that his marriage to my sister was mainly for the sake of my children, and to shield her from the whispers of the gossips by giving her his name. But, nevertheless, she was his wife in the eyes of God and in her own pure heart; it was not for me, her twin sister, to dishonour her; and with a cry forced from me from the pang of determination renewed, even as I sat with buried face, caressed by my husband, I sprang to my feet, stepped a few paces away, and confronted him with dry eyes.
‘Read this letter, John,’ I said; and I put Mary’s letter upon the table.
He picked it up with one hand, and with the other drew a letter from his pocket.
‘This, too,’ he said, ‘is from Mary.’
It was addressed to my husband. It contained not above twenty lines. She said that the white-haired lady who had been carried into the house was Agnes, ‘my sister and your wife.’ She gave him my address, which she had doubtless found on the card that had been stitched to my jacket, and bade him go to me without delay. She then, in a few words, pointed out that I had come to Bath to see my children, that I knew she had been married to him, and that I had meant to remain as though dead to them that her happiness might not be disturbed. Wonderful was the sympathy of the sweet and gentle heart that could thus interpret me! She briefly concluded by saying that she left him and the children with tears and love, and that day and night she would pray to God to continue to bless the house in which she had passed so many happy years.
My heart wept tears of blood as I read this letter, but my eyes remained dry. My husband put the letter I had given to him upon the table after reading it, and stood with his head bowed. He looked pale, distress worked in his face, he had been travelling all day and was cold, and he was my husband and I loved him. I took him by the hand and led him to an arm-chair near the fire, and stood beside him.
‘John,’ I said, ‘Mary is your wife, and out of her letter I interpret what you yourself must know. Can I dishonour my beloved sister by replacing her? Would you wish it? Could you endure the thought of it? You must seek her, take her to you again, cherish her. I ask only for my children. Give me them, for they are mine and I must have them.’
‘I will seek her, Agnes, but you are my wife. I will seek her; but suppose I find her? It is not she who is my wife; it is you. Could I induce her to live with us under the same roof?’ He paused, and then said, a little wildly, ‘Why have you been silent for three years? What has become of you in all that long time?’