"
Dr. Dunlap moved his foot and placed her again on the stone ledge. She
leaned against the wall. There was a ringing in her ears. The
unpardonable sin in man is not his ceasing to love you. That may be a
mortal pain, but it has dignity. It is the fearful judgment of seeing in
a flash that you have wasted your life on what was not worth the waste.
"Now if you are composed, Maria," said Dr. Dunlap hurriedly, "I will say
what I followed you here to say. The best thing for us to do, now that I
am free to do it, is to have the marriage ceremony repeated over us and
made valid. I am ready and willing. The only drawback is the prejudice
of your family against me."
A magnanimous tone in his voice betrayed eagerness to put the Joneses
under obligations to him.
"Dr. Dunlap,"--when Maria had spoken his name she panted awhile,--"when
I found out I was not your wife, and left you, I began then to cough.
But now--we can never be married."
"Why, Maria?"
She began those formidable sounds again, and he held his breath.
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