I sank down on a settle near the wall and stared at her, absolutely speechless with surprise and horror, while she continued her sewing without a second look, though I could mark her hands were trembling so she could hardly direct her needle.
“Good God! Lucy! Is it really you?” I cried, scarce believing the evidence of my senses.
“I am she whom you name.”
“And you know me?”
“I know that you are Hugh Maxwell,” she answered, in the same steady voice.
“And you know that I am your husband.”
“I have no husband. My husband is dead.”
“Lucy, do not break my heart! I am not a scoundrel! Do you think for a moment I could abandon the girl who trusted and married me? I had the most positive intelligence of your death. Lucy, Lucy, for God's sake speak, and do not torture me beyond endurance. Tell me what has happened.”
But the trembling hands went on with their task, though she neither raised her head nor spake. My brain was in a whirl, and I did not know what to think or how to act, so I preserved at least an outward quiet for a time, trying to imagine her position.
I was but eighteen when I had married her, a tradesman's daughter, but my uncertain allowance, as well as the certain wrath of my family, prevented me acknowledging her as my wife, and no one except her mother knew of our union.