“So you believe. Now listen to me: I married Samuel Rock in order that you might marry Emma Levinger. I meant to marry you, Henry, but your mother came to me and implored me not to do so, so I took this means of putting myself out of the reach of temptation.” “My mother came to you, and you did _that!_ Why, you must be mad!” “Perhaps; but so it is, and the plot has answered very well, especially as our child is dead.” “Our child!” he said, turning deathly pale: “was there any child?” “Yes, Henry; and she was very like you. Her name was Joan. I thought that you would wish her to be called Joan. I buried her about a month ago.” For a moment he hid his face in his hands, then said, “Perhaps, Joan, you will explain, for I am bewildered.” So she told him all. “Fate and our own folly have dealt very hardly with us, Joan,” he said in a quiet voice when she had finished; “and now I do not see what there is to be done. We are both of us married, and there is nothing between us except our past and the dead child. By Heaven! you are a noble woman, but also you are a foolish one. Why could you not consult me instead of listening to my mother, or to any one else who chose to plead with you in my interests—and their own?” “If I had consulted you, Henry, by now I should have been your wife.” “Well, and was that so terrible a prospect to you? As you know, I asked nothing better; and it chanced that I was able to obtain a promise of employment abroad which would have supported both of us in comfort. Or—answer me truly, Joan—did you, on the whole, as he told me, think that you would do better to marry Mr. Rock?” “If Mr. Rock said that,” she answered, looking at him steadily, “he said what he knew to be false, since before I married him I told him all the facts and bargained that I should live apart from him for a while. Oh! Henry, how can you doubt me? I tell you that I hate this man whom I have married for your sake, that the sight of him is dreadful to me, and that I had sooner live in prison than with him. And yet to-day I go to him.” “I do not doubt you, Joan,” he answered, in a voice that betrayed the extremity of his distress; “but the thing is so appalling that it paralyses me, and I know neither what to do nor to say. Do you want help to get away from him?” She shook her head sadly, and answered, “I can escape from him in one way only, Henry—by death, for my bargain was that when the time of grace was ended I would come to be his faithful wife. After all he is my husband, and my duty is towards him.” “I suppose so,—curse him for a cringing hound. Oh, Joan! the thought of it drives me mad, and I am helpless. I cannot in honour even say the words that lie upon my tongue.” “I know,” she answered; “say nothing, only tell me that you believe me.” “Of course I believe you; but my belief will not save you from Samuel Rock, or me from my remorse.”