‘I left my father’s house secretly at daybreak next morning, half heartbroken. I have no excuse to plead for this wicked desertion of parents who had loved me only too well; or only the common excuse that I loved the man who tempted me away from them—loved him above duty, honour, self-respect. I left the dear old home where I had been so happy, conscious that I left it under a cloud. Only in the future could I see myself reestablished in the love and confidence of my father and mother; but Mr. Bertram assured me that future was not far off. Of the bitter time that followed, I will speak as briefly as possible. Mine was a wretched wandering life, linked with a man whom I discovered but too soon to be utterly wanting in honour or principle; a life spent with one whose only profession was to prey upon his fellow men; who knew no scruple where his own advantage was in question; whom I soon knew to be relentless, heartless, false to the very core. Heaven knows it is hard to say all this of one I had so deeply loved, for whom I had hazarded and lost so much. Enough that the day came when I could no longer endure the dishonour of association with him; when I felt that I would sooner go out into the bleak world of which I knew so little, and commit my own fate and my child’s to the mercy of God, than share the degradation of a life sustained by fraud. I told my husband as much: that finding all my endeavours to persuade him to alter his mode of life worse than useless, since they led only to bursts of scornful anger on his part, I had resolved to leave him, and live as I best might by my own industry, or, if God pleased, starve. He heard my decision with supreme indifference, and turning to me with the bitter smile I knew so well, said: “I congratulate you on having arrived at so wise a decision. The matrimonial fetters have galled us both. I thought you a clever woman, and a fitting helpmeet for a man who has to live by his wits. I find you a puling fool, with a mind cramped by the teaching of a country parsonage. Our union has been a mistake for both; but I am happy to inform you that it is not irrevocable. Our marriage before the registrar and our marriage in the church are alike null and void; for I had a wife living at the time, and, for aught I know, have still.”’ ‘The consummate scoundrel,’ cried Geoffrey, with a smothered curse; ‘but why do you tell me these things? why torture yourself by recalling them? However wronged by this villain, in my eyes you are purest among the pure.’