“All that is of the past,” I replied. “She is now infatuated with this man who has recently come into her life. In this world of London she, calm, patient, trusting in the religious truth taught at her mother’s knee, was as my beacon, guiding me upon the upward path which, alas! is so very hard to keep aright. But all is over, and,” I added with a sigh, “the sun of my happiness has gone down ere I have reached the meridian of life.”
“But what have you done to cause her to doubt you?” she asked in a voice more kindly than ever before.
“Nothing! Absolutely nothing!” I declared. “We have been friends through years, and knowing how pure, how honest, how upright she is, I am ready at this moment to make her my wife.”
“Remember,” she said, warningly, “you have position, while she is a mere shop-assistant, to whom your friends would probably take exception.”
“It matters not,” I exclaimed vehemently. “I love her. Is not that quite sufficient?”
“Quite!” she said. Then a silence fell between us.
Suddenly she looked up and inquired whether I knew this man who was now her lover.
“Only by sight,” I answered. “I have no faith in him.”
“Why?” she inquired eagerly.
“Because his face shows him to be cold and crafty, designing and relentless,” I answered, recollecting how this woman now before me had once walked with him in the Park, and the curious influence he had apparently held over her.