“On the plea of desertion and repudiation,” she said. “I—I believed all that they told me—that you did not love me—that you would be glad to be free. It is only lately that I did it, and for myself I would not have wished it; but they told me that you were to marry Sarah Rochester; they—she and her mother—discovered my identity, and, though they also asserted that our marriage was illegal, they said there might be a possibility that I would have some claim upon you, and they wanted me—or Sarah did—to make assurance doubly sure by applying for a separation—it could be secretly done, and no one save the lawyer and ourselves need ever know anything about it, while, since she was going to marry you, it would be a great burden off her mind. I was dead to you; there was no hope that I could ever be anything to you again, and so—O True, I was desperate, I believed you loved her, I wanted you to be happy, even if I was not, and I did not wish to stand in the way of your interests or desires—so, I signed the letter she wrote——” “The letter that she, Miss Rochester, wrote?” he demanded in a terrible voice, and beginning to realize all the treachery and wickedness that had been employed to separate them, without regard to his feelings or the ruin of his wife’s life and happiness. “Oh, do not make me tell any more!” Salome cried, as she suddenly recalled that scene in Mrs. Rochester’s parlor. “It is better, perhaps, that you should not know——” “But I shall make you tell more—all—everything. I will know!” he said in a determined tone. “Was it Miss Rochester who made you sign that letter?” She bowed a mute assent. “Did—did my mother have anything to do with the matter?” “No—oh, no.” “Thank Heaven! I should have been humiliated indeed to know that she could have been guilty of such a crime,” the young physician ejaculated, as he wiped the perspiration from a face, white to the lips. She thought he was suffering on account of Miss Rochester’s treachery. “Oh, forgive me—forgive me and do not question me any more,” she pleaded. “I have done this thing, and I must bear your scorn and anger as best I can. I have loved you through all—too well, perhaps—I shall love you till I die. I have been rash, foolish; I have allowed my pride, my desperation, to drive me to extremes, when I should have trusted and consulted you. I have found it out, all too late. It is my punishment, and I have no one but myself to blame.” “Hush, Salome,” her husband said gently, almost unnerved himself at the sight of her wretchedness and hopelessness, “since you love me, as you say you do, it is all I ask; the past shall go for nothing. I can even overlook the application for a divorce, since I know it was forced from you—that you were tricked into it. You live—you were not a victim of that fearful fire—I have found you, and nothing shall ever separate us again.”