Now we were only measurably isolated on the stair, and some sense of the
hazard we took--a hazard involving her as well as Richard and
myself--steadied me with a sudden shock.
"Control yourself," I whispered. "What is done, is done; and the misery
is not all yours to suffer. Tell me how I may find the priest, and I
will do my errand and begone."
"You can not stay to find him now--you must not," she insisted, coming
out of the fit of despair with a rebound. "He is in the town--indeed, I
know not where he is just now. Can you not endure it a little longer,
Captain Ireton?"
"No," said I, sullenly. "I have been living a lie all these months to
the friend I love best, and I will not do it more."
Could I be mistaken? Surely there was a flash not of anger in the eyes
that were lifted to mine, and a tremulous note of eagerness in the
voice that said: "Then Dick does not know?--you have not told him?"
"No; I have told no one."
"Poor Dick!" she said softly. "I thought he knew, and I--"
She paused, and in the pause it flashed upon me how she had wronged my
dear lad; how she had thought he would make brazen love to her knowing
she was the wife of another. I thanked God in my heart that I had been
able to right him thus far.
After a time she said: "Why did you make me marry you, Monsieur John?
Oh, I have racked my brain so for the answer to that question. I know
you said it was to save my honor. But surely we have paid a heavier
penalty than any that could have been laid upon me had you left me as I
was.
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