“I promised him that I would not, and I meant to keep my promise; but a fortnight afterwards—when my husband having gone up to London, I was alone—this same man stepped, without any announcement whatever, through one of the front windows opening into the garden, and, after very briefly apologising for his intrusion, and the fright he had caused me, commenced one of the most dreadful sermons you ever heard, Heather, and wound up by inquiring ‘whether I had ever considered I was going down into hell and dragging his cousin there with me.’ “Thinking he was mad, I humoured him at first; but, after a time, finding there was a wonderful coherence in his discourse—that it was, in fact, too stupid to be the speech of a madman—I asked him, plainly, what he meant, entreating of him, in the same sentence, not to tell Maurice’s father of his son’s marriage; for that fear of bringing unhappiness on my husband was the only grief I had. “Then it was his turn to look bewildered. ‘Father—son—husband—Maurice!’ he repeated in blank astonishment. ‘My cousin’s name is not Maurice, and has no father living. May I ask pardon if you are _married_ to my——the gentleman I——met you with the other day?’ “‘Certainly,’ I answered; ‘do you think I should be here if I were not?’ “‘Then,’ he said, ‘it is my duty to tell you my cousin has most grossly deceived you. The marriage is not, cannot be, a legal one; for, to my knowledge, his wife is alive at the present moment.’ “After that,” proceeded Bessie, “there is a blank in my memory—I suppose I fainted; it was a fearful blow to receive, but the man who dealt it stayed with me for nearly an hour, and was very kind and thoughtful towards me. He did not call the servants; he made no fuss; he threw a little water on my face, and let me struggle back to consciousness without drawing the attention of any one to my trouble. When I was quite recovered he begged my pardon for the mistake he had made in the first instance, and assured me, I think truly, that, had he guessed for a moment the depth of his cousin’s treachery, he never would have been so abrupt. “‘But I spoke to him in his own house about you the other day,’ he added, ‘and he bade me mind my own business, and not interfere with his—who you were or what you were, he said, was his concern, and his only. So then I determined that you should not perish eternally for want of a word spoken in time.’ “I let him go on for some minutes—I let him preach to his heart’s content, and then I said: “‘You have told me his faults—now show me his excuse. He was forced to marry against his will. His wife is old, ugly, ill-tempered. He never loved her; it was a marriage of convenience, which he was compelled into by others.’