“Yes. I received a letter from her a few months after the wedding asking for money, but vouchsafing no explanation of her strange conduct. I went to the address--it was in London--and found it to be a small stationer’s shop. The woman in charge said a foreign man always came for the letters, but he spoke little English, and she knew nothing about him. Without pursuing my quest further I sent the money, and asked Ninette to come back to me, or at least to grant an interview. She refused to do either, and wrote that she considered our marriage a mistake, adding that as long as I sent her a little money occasionally, for her favourite pastime, she would trouble me no further. I was not sorry to get out of the wood that way, and complied with her request, generally sending the money to the _Poste Restante_, Paris. After a while, however, I grew tired of despatching large sums to be squandered on betting, and told her so, whereupon she threatened to come to Durlston and assume her rightful place as mistress of the Towers. She evidently knew that I had some sort of a position there; and that for a wife--and such a wife--to suddenly appear on the scene would reflect discredit upon myself. That was about three or four years ago; and curiously enough, I have had no word from her since. I began to believe that she must be dead; but a friend of mine--the only one who knows my secret--has seen her twice during the last six months, once at Monte Carlo, and the second time alighting from a Channel boat at Dover. On both occasions he tried to get an opportunity of speaking to her, but she evaded him, and he lost her in the crowd. So that is how the matter stands, Marjorie. I have not a wife in the true sense of the word, yet I am fettered by the marriage laws. It is a cruel predicament for a man to be placed in.” “Why did you not tell me all this before?” she said, with the first touch of reproach. “Oh, it was cruel of you to pose as a bachelor all this time--especially cruel towards me. I would have died rather than have confessed my love, had I known the truth.” She spoke quite calmly, but she could not repress the tear which trembled on her lash. It wended its way down her cheek when Karne admitted that he had been cruel, foolish, and weak; woman-like she could not bear to hear him blame himself. And then she began to think of the future--her lonely, empty future. All the castles she had built in the air--the happy day-dreams of a life blessed with love--struck down at one blow. She had been living in a fool’s paradise; now she would reap the consequences of her folly. Suddenly a new thought seemed to strike her; and an eager yet half-frightened expression came into her eyes. “Herbert, if you were free, would you marry me?” she questioned, in a low tremulous voice. “Don’t be afraid of hurting me; I want to know the truth.”