and spirits; she was pining away in that remote home, shut out
from the living world she longed for with a longing I can not put into
words. I spoke to her--do not blame her, she was a beautiful, ignorant
child--I spoke to her, asking some questions about the road, and she
replied. Looking at her face, I swore that I would release her from the
life she hated, and take her where she would be happy.

"I met her again and again. Heaven pardon me if I did my best to awake
an interest in her girlish heart! I told her stories of travel and
adventure that stirred all the romance in her nature. With the keen
instinct of love I understood her character, and played upon its
weakness while I worshiped its strength.

"She told me of a sad, patient young mother who never smiled, of a
father who was abroad and would not return for many years. Pardon me,
my lord, if, in common with many others, I believed this story to be
one to appease her. Pardon me, if I doubted as many others
did--whether the sad young mother was your wife.

"I imagined that I was going to rescue her from a false position when I
asked her to be my wife. She said her mother dreaded all mention of
love and lovers, and I prayed her to keep my love a secret from all the
world.

"I make no excuses for myself; she was young and innocent as a dreaming
child. I ought to have looked on her beautiful face and left her. My
lord, am I altogether to blame? The lonely young girl at Knutsford
pined for what I could give her--happiness and pleasure did not seem so
far removed from me. Had she been in her proper place I could never
have addressed her.

"Not to you can I tell the details of my love story--how I worshiped
with passionate love the beautiful, innocent child who smiled into my
face and drank in my words. I asked her to be my wife, and she
promised. My lord, I never for a moment dreamed that she would ever
have a home with you--it did not seem to me possible. I intended to
return and marry her, firmly believing that in some respects my rank
and condition in life were better than her own. She promised to be
true to me, to love no one else, to wait for me, and to marry me when I
returned.

"I believe now that she never loved me. My love and devotion were but
a pleasant interruption in the monotony of her life. They were to blame
also who allowed her no pleasures--who forced her to resort to this
stolen one.

"My lord, I placed a ring upon your daug