“Up here!” he gasped. “He loved you, then?”
“Yes. And when I went to Dresden he went there also.”
“Why?”
She held her breath. Her eyes looked straight into his, and then were downcast.
“Because—because,” she faltered hoarsely, “because he is my husband!”
“Your husband. Great heavens!”
“Yes. I married him six months ago at the registry office in the Blackfriars Road, in London,” she said in a strangely blank voice. “I am Madame Berton.”
He stood utterly dumbfounded. The sweet, refined face of the child-wife was ashen pale, her white lips were trembling, and tears were welling in her eyes. He could see she wished to confide further in him.
“Well?” he asked. It was the only word he could utter.
“We parted half an hour after our marriage, and I have only seen him six times since. He comes here surreptitiously,” she said in a low voice of despair.