“I don’t know what you must think of me, Mr Greenwood. I’m ashamed of myself, and of the manner in which I’ve deceived you. My only excuse is that it was imperative. I married because I was forced to by a chain of circumstances, as you will realise when you know the truth.” Then she was silent again.
“But you’ll tell me the truth, won’t you?” I urged. “I, as your best friend, as indeed the man who has loved you, have surely a right to know!”
She only shook her head in bitter sorrow, and looking at me through her tears, answered briefly—
“I have told you the truth. I am married. I can only ask your pardon for deceiving you and explain that I was compelled to do so.”
“You mean that you were compelled to marry him? Compelled by whom?”
“By him,” she faltered. “One morning two years ago I left London alone and met him at Wymondham, where I had previously been staying for a fortnight while my father was fishing. Herbert met me at the station, and we were married in secret, two men, picked at haphazard from the street, acting as witnesses. After the ceremony we parted. I took off my ring and returned home, no one being the wiser. We had a dinner-party that evening. Lord Newborough, Lady Rainham and yourself were there, and we went to the Haymarket afterwards. Don’t you recollect it? As we sat in the box you asked me why I was so dull and thoughtful, and I pleaded a headache. Ah! if you had but known!”
“I recollect the night perfectly,” I said, pitying her. “And it was your wedding evening? But how did he compel you to marry him? The motive is, of course, quite plain. He wished either to profit by the fact that you could not afford to allow the truth to be known that you were the wife of a groom, or else his intention was to gain possession of your money at your father’s death. Yours is certainly not the first marriage of the sort that has been contracted,” I added, with a feeling of blank dismay.
At the very moment when my hopes had been raised to their highest level by Mrs Percival’s statement the blow had fallen, and in an instant I saw that love was impossible. Mabel, the woman I loved so fondly and so well, was the wife of a loutish brute who was torturing her to madness by his threats, and would, as already had been proved, hesitate at nothing in order to gain his despicable ends.
My feelings were indescribable. No words of mine can give any adequate idea of how torn was my heart by conflicting emotions. Until that moment she had been beneath my protection, yet now that she was the wife of another I had no right to control her actions, no right to admire, no right to love.
Ah! if ever man felt crushed, despairing and hopeless, if ever man realised how aimless and empty his lonely life had been, I did at that moment.