“My beloved, I can say no more; I dare reveal no more. If you deign to think at all of one who has so deceived you, think of me pityingly as the most deeply wretched of men. Forgive me if you can; and I dare even to hope for pardon from the infinite goodness of your nature. It is sweet to me in my misery to know that you bear my name—that there is a link between us that can never be broken, even though Fate should be cruel enough to part us for life. But I hope for better things from destiny; I hope for, and look forward to a time when I shall sign myself, with pride and gladness more intense than the pain I feel today, your loving husband,
She stood for some minutes pale as marble, with the letter in her hand, and then she lifted the senseless paper to her lips, and kissed it passionately.
“He loves me,” she cried involuntarily. “Thank God for that. I can bear anything now I am sure of that.”
She believed implicitly in the letter. A woman with wider knowledge of the evil things of this world might have seen only a tissue of lies in these wild lines of John Treverton’s; but to Laura they meant truth and truth alone. He had acted very wickedly; but he loved her. He had done her almost the deepest wrong a man could do to a woman; but he loved her. He had duped and fooled her, made her ridiculous in the sight of her friends and acquaintance; but he loved her. That one virtue in him almost atoned for all his crimes.
“There’s not the least use in my trying to hate him,” she told herself, in piteous self-abasement, “for I love him with all my heart and soul. I suppose I am a mean-spirited young woman, a poor creature, for I cannot leave off loving him, though he has treated me very cruelly, and almost broken my heart.”
She locked the letter in the secret drawer of her dressing case, and then sat down on a low stool by the fire and wept very quietly over this new, strange sorrow.
“Celia was right,” she said to herself, by-and-bye, with a bitter smile. “It was an ill-omened marriage. She need not have taken so much trouble about my collars and cuffs.”
And then later she began to think of the difficulties, the absurdity of her position.
“Wife and widow,” she thought, “with a husband who ran away from me on my wedding day. How am I to account to the world for his conduct? What a foolish, miserable creature I shall appear.”
It came suddenly into her mind that she could not endure, not yet awhile, at any rate, to have to explain her husband’s conduct—to give some reason for his desertion of her. Anything would be better than that. She must run away somewhere. She must leave the revelation to time. It would be easier for her to write to her old friend the vicar from a distance.
She could bear anything rather than to be cross-examined by Celia, who had always distrusted John Treverton, and who might be secretly elated at his having proved himself an impostor.
“I must go away at once,” she decided; “this very night. I must go for my honeymoon alone.”
She rang, and Mary came quickly, flushed with tea, buttered toast, and the hilarity below stairs.
“What time is the carriage to come for us, Mary?” asked Mrs. Treverton.
“At a quarter to eight ma’am. The mail goes at twenty minutes before nine.”
“And it is just half-past six. Mary, do you think you could get ready to go with me in an hour and a quarter?”
It had been arranged that Laura was to travel without a maid, much to the disappointment of Mary, who had an ardent desire to see foreign lands.
“Lor, ma’am, I haven’t a thing packed; but I should dearly like to go. Do you really mean it?”
“I do mean it, and I shall be very much pleased with you if you’ll contrive to pack your trunk in time to go with me.”
“I’ll do it, ma’am,” cried Mary, clasping her hands in ecstasy, and then she tore downstairs like a mad thing to announce to the assembly in the housekeeper’s room that she was going to France with her mistress.
“That’s a sudden change,” said the butler. “And where’s Mr. Treverton all this time? He didn’t ought to be out of doors in the dark, smoking his cigar, instead of keeping his wife company.”
“No more he didn’t,” said Mary, with indignation, “he ain’t my notion of a ’usband, leaving her to mope alone on her wedding day, poor dear. It’s my belief she’d been crying her eyes out just now, though she was artful enough to keep her face turned away from me while she spoke. I dessay
