out of a situation, you should come to them? Why did you not
take them at their word? They had always been very kind to you, and they
would have given you a warm welcome and a happy home. Now, why need you
have rushed into a reckless marriage for a home?"

"Oh, Fabian!" she exclaimed, impatiently, "don't pretend to talk like
an idiot, for you are not one! Don't talk to me as if I were a wax doll
or a wooden woman, for you know I am not one!"

"I am sure I do not know what you mean!"

"Well, then, I loved the man! There, it is out! I loved him more than I
ever loved any one else in the whole world! And I was afraid of losing
him!"

"And so it was because you loved him so well that you deceived him so
much!"

"Didn't he deceive me much more?"

"There were a pair of you--well matched! So well, it seems a pity that
you were parted!"

"Oh, how very unkind you are to me!"

"Not yet unkind! Only waiting to see how you are going to behave!"

"I have never behaved badly! I was not wicked; I was unhappy! Unhappy
from my birth, almost! I had no evil designs against anybody. I only
wanted to be happy and to see people happy. I honestly believed I was
lawfully married to Captain Stillwater. He took me to the Wirt House and
registered our names as Mr. and Mrs. Stillwater. And we were very happy
until his ship sailed. He gave me plenty of money before he went away;
but I was heartbroken to part with him, and could take no pleasure in
anything until I got a little used to his absence."

"I think you told me that you met him once more before your final
separation. When was that meeting? Eh?"

"Fabian Rockharrt, are you trying to catch me in a falsehood? You know
very well that I never told you anything of the sort I told you that I
never saw him again after he sailed away that autumn day! I waited all
the autumn and heard nothing from him, I wrote to him often, but none
of my letters were answered. At length I longed so much to see him that
I grew wild and reckless and resolved to follow him. I took passage in
the second cabin of the Africa and sailed for Liverpool, where I arrived
about the middle of December. I went to the agency of the Blue Star
Line, to which his ship belonged, and inquired where he was to be found.
They told me he had sailed for Calcutta and had taken his wife with him!
It turned me to stone--to stone, Fabian--almost! I remember I sat down
on a bench and felt numb and cold. And then I asked how long he