“He knew what I was thinking of—he guessed I was seeking an apology to stay with him. He had sense enough to see I would have given life itself to hear his wife was a hideous old shrew. He had not human feeling sufficient to understand my mad jealousy, but he could not help seeing it was not accusations against my husband I wanted to hear. Oh no! it was the defence I was panting for. “‘He married young,’ was the reply, ‘a lady of equal age, well born, wealthy, beautiful, accomplished, virtuous. They do not live happily, it is true; but she was his own free choice. He was rich and independent enough always to marry whomsoever he pleased.’ “‘And his real name?’ I asked. “Then he told me, and then only I fully understood how cruelly I had been deceived—what a tissue of falsehoods his story had been from first to last, from beginning to end. He had passed himself off to me as the man who now sat explaining the depth of my misery to me. I showed him the certificate of my marriage, and he said, ‘Yes; according to this the bridegroom was myself. What shall you do now? You will not, I trust, make the matter public, nor think of prosecuting him.’ “Prosecuting him! I stared at him as I repeated the words. Bring trouble to the man I loved! What did he think I was made of, I wonder, to expect I should turn in a moment like that? Husband or no husband, he was still dearer to me than anything on the face of God’s earth; and so I told this bearer of bad tidings, who then seemed to fear I should fall, as he expressed it, into deeper sin; that my beauty—he had the grace to admit I was beautiful—should prove a worse snare than ever to his cousin, a lure of the devil to trap him to destruction. “I could not bear any more after that. I asked him if he were a clergyman, and he said no; that the sect to which he belonged approved of lay preachers, and that all men were ministers whom the grace of God moved to speak His word. “‘And do you imagine such lecturing will do me any good?’ I said; ‘do you not know you are taking the most likely means to make me remain where I am? Do you consider it is a light trouble which has befallen me? Do you expect me to feel grateful to you for bringing news which has utterly destroyed my happiness?’ for I was so happy—so happy. “‘Sinfully happy,’ he said. “At that I fired up. Where was the sin, I asked, when I knew nothing of it? Why could he not have left me alone, now the thing was done and past, and that no act of mine could undo it? Why did he come there? I raved, I think I must have done, for at length he said he would leave me for a season, and return the next day when I grew calmer, and more willing to listen to the voice of consolation. “‘Meaning yours,’ I suggested. “‘I will help you, if you permit me,’ he answered; ‘help you with advice—money to go back to your friends.’