“To your husband—I suppose you were about to remark,” cried Miss Rochester, with a sneering laugh. “In my presence I hope you will not thus speak of the man to whom I am betrothed. Your husband! Pshaw! Have you not been told that your marriage with him was but a farce?” Salome shivered. Every word that the cruel girl had uttered had pierced her sensitive heart like a dagger. “Don’t—don’t!” she breathed, and her teeth began to chatter with the nervous chill that was creeping over her. Ever since Madame Winthrop had told her that she was no wife she had been crushed and humiliated by the thought that she had been living in a false position. She could have borne it quietly and patiently if Dr. Winthrop had shown a desire to shield her; if he had but written to her that, to all intents and purposes, she was his wife—that he felt morally bound to her, even though there might have been some technical flaw in their union; if he had but told her to remain where she was and he would make everything right when he returned. But instead of doing this—instead of proving the true, noble man she had believed him, he had shown himself to be weak; he had allowed himself to be influenced by his proud mother’s view of the situation, and had sent her out of his home, as if she had been some shameful character, whose presence there would bring opprobrium upon him, and this had crushed her. Time had only served to increase her suffering and sensitiveness upon this point, and she had tried—when the opportunity offered—to drop quietly out of the world. She was too innocent and unsuspecting—too ignorant of all legal questions to imagine for a moment that she had been deceived—to reason that the simple fact of Dr. Winthrop having taken vows in the presence of witnesses, or having installed her in his home as his wife in the presence of his servants, would establish her position according to the laws of New York, even though there might have been some informality about their union which might have seriously affected it in other States. Neither had it occurred to her to take advice upon the subject and try to obtain redress. She had simply believed what she had been told, and then, imagining that her husband was ashamed and regretted the alliance, she had resolved to take herself forever out of his way. “I do not wonder you are ashamed,” continued Miss Rochester, as she remarked Salome’s emotion; “and yet, in spite of all, you have come here and forced yourself upon him.” “I did not—oh, I did not!” Salome murmured, a burning blush suffusing her face; “but he was in such trouble, I could not resist the desire to come. His friend was dying, and he could get no one to nurse him. I knew I could give him good care, even if I could not save him, and so, when he appealed to me, I yielded. Then he asked me to come here. Oh, it was hard—no one will ever know how hard—but he needed me, and I would have given my life for him——”