“Yes; perhaps you’re a better Christian than I am, or perhaps you pretend to be; but knowing what you’ve been, and how you’ve fallen to what you are, I don’t think it’s in human nature that you shouldn’t feel the same as me.” “What I’ve been, and how I’ve fallen to what I am!” said Edgar, smiling at the expression with whimsical amazement and vexation. “What is the object in life which you suppose me to share?” “To spite the Ardens!” cried the young lady from the mantle department, with sudden vigour and animation. Her eyes flashed, she clasped her hands together, and laughed and coughed--the laughter hard and mirthless, the cough harder still, and painful to hear. “Don’t you remember what I said to you? All my trouble, all that has ever gone against me in the world, and the base stories they’re telling you now--all came along of the Ardens; and now Providence has thrown you in my way, that has as much reason to hate them. I can’t set myself right without setting them wrong--and revenge is sweet. Arthur Arden shall rue the day he ever set eyes on you or me!” “Wait a little,” said Edgar, bewildered. “In the first place, I don’t hate the Ardens, and I don’t want to injure them, and I hope, when we talk it over, you may change your mind. What has Arthur Arden done to you?” “That’s my story,” said Miss Lockwood, and then she made a short pause. “Do you know the things that are said about me?” she asked. “They say in the house that I have had a baby. That’s quite true. I would not deny it when I was asked; I didn’t choose to tell a lie. They believed me fast enough when what I said was to my own disadvantage; but when I told the truth in another way, because it was to my advantage, they say--Prove it. I can’t prove it without ruining other folks, or I’d have done it before now; but I was happy enough as I was, and I didn’t care to ruin others. Now, however, they’ve forced me to it, and thrown you in my way.” “For heaven’s sake,” cried Edgar, “don’t mix me up with your scheme of vengeance! What have I to do with it?” He was alarmed by the calm white vehemence with which she spoke. “Oh! not much with my part of the business,” she said lightly. “This is how it is: I’m married--excuse enough any day for what I’m charged with; but they won’t take my word, and I have to prove it. When I tell them I’m only a widow in a kind of a way, they say to me, ‘Produce your husband,’ and this is what I’ve got to do. Nearly ten years ago, Mr. Earnshaw, if that is your name--are you listening to me?--I married Arthur Arden; or, rather, Arthur Arden married me.” “Good God!” cried Edgar; he did not at first seem to take in the meaning of the words, but only felt vaguely that he had received a blow. “You are mad!” he said, after a pause, looking at her--“you are mad!” “Not a bit; I am saner than you are, for I never would have given up a fortune to him. I am the first Mrs. Arthur Arden, whoever the second may be. He married me twice over, to make it more sure.”