Faith looked at him as he stood there, pale, hollow-eyed and dejected, then with almost a cry she burst out impulsively: "Oh, how could you do such a thing, Mr. Denton? How did you dare to wrong that poor girl as you have? Don't you know that in so doing you have branded yourself a coward?" "So she has told you and saved me from doing so?" Young Denton breathed a sigh of relief. He had come too late with his awful confession. "Yes, she told us, your father and me," said Faith, faintly. "Oh, it is dreadful--dreadful; I can't understand it!" "Neither can I," said James Denton, with a tinge of bitterness in his voice. "I have never understood how I came to do it. I was a fool--an imbecile--a lunatic, Miss Marvin. I married the girl without even dreaming that I loved her." Faith stared at him in surprise as he spoke the words. She was conscious even of a flutter of happiness as she listened to the confession. "Then why did you marry her?" she asked at last. She watched eagerly to hear his answer. "It was all done for a lark," began the young man. "We were out with some friends, Miss Brady and I, and I--I suppose we had all been drinking too much; then some one suggested a wedding, and I was fool enough to play the bridegroom." "And you did not love her?" Faith asked the question slowly. "Not a bit, Miss Marvin; I liked her, of course. But she was in love with me; I discovered that later." "Why did you not own her as your wife?" Faith hardly knew her own voice as she asked this. It hardly seemed possible that she could speak so calmly. Mr. Denton looked at her sharply before he replied. "You can guess that surely," he said very softly. "Rascal that I was, I was ashamed to own her." After a minute he went on with almost desperate calmness, as though he was determined to tell the whole of the distressing secret. "I told her that dad would disown me if he knew that I had married her, but that if she would wait until I was twenty-one, that there would be no more danger of my losing my money. Mag likes money, you know, and she consented readily, but when she saw me flirting with the other girls, as I had to, you see, to make every one think that I was still single, her jealousy got the best of her, and you know what happened." "Well, you will have to own her now," said Faith in almost a whisper. She had been praying silently for strength to say it calmly. "Never!" cried young Denton with a flash of anger in his eyes. "Own a murderess for my wife--never! never! Miss Marvin!" "Then I shall despise you," said Faith, with a flush of color in her cheeks. "For it is the only thing you can do to right the wrong that you have done her." "But I can't. Indeed, I can't!" cried the young man, wildly. "Don't you see, Miss Marvin, that I have nothing to give her, no love, no respect, not even friendship?" "But you must own her, just the same," said Faith, decidedly. "Maggie was a good girl once; it is love for you that has ruined her."