"I don't know," I say deliberately, "whether I shall consent to a second marriage. I have grown accustomed to my present life; solitude suits me. Now I am free then---" I have scarcely, I think, rightly calculated the full effect of my words. Striding forward, Marmaduke seizes me by both arms, and, turning, forces me to meet his gaze. "What are you saying?" he cries, fiercely. "What folly is this? Do you know that for all these past months I have been half mad, when thinking of the blight I have brought upon your honor, and are you so insensible to it that you can hesitate about accepting this one only way of redeeming it? Your dislike to me must have grown indeed, if at such a time you can shrink from taking my name." "You misunderstand me. I only shrink from changing my present calm mode of living." "Do you know what the world will do, when sooner or later it finds out the truth--as it surely will? Do you know it will cut you, avoid you, wound you in every possible way?" "Why should I care?" I interrupt, recklessly. "All these months I have done without companionship; there is no reason why in the future I should feel the want of it. Besides, they must see it is through no fault of mine that things have so arranged themselves." "The world will never be content with the true version of the story. It will not rest without adding to it such false outlines as shall serve to render it more palatable to its scandal-loving ears. You must be indeed ignorant of its ways if you can imagine otherwise. It will ask why, when the obstacle was happily removed, I did not then marry you? What answer will you make to that?" "Who will question me? If I shut myself away from every one, how shall I be affected by the surmises of society?" "You talk like a foolish child, and like a very selfish one. Am I unworthy of any consideration? How shall I bear to look on while society vilifies you to its heart's content and leaves you without a rag of reputation? You in your present position--a woman without a name--would have as much chance of admission within your own circle as the veriest Pariah that could be produced. I will not listen to your folly. Even if you hate me, I shall insist upon your marrying me." "How can you insist!" I ask almost angrily. There is a wild, unsettled throbbing of my heart that puzzles me I scarcely know what it is I would or would not wish. All these past mouths of bitter maddening thought and unbroken loneliness have crushed the life within my breast and dulled my intellect. "You have no claim upon me?"