at he should have loved such
a gentle timid creature, though that, perhaps, was not so strange as a man
like Robert Turold loving any woman. But love her he did.

"She had a great capacity for affection--she was one of those women who
have to love, and be loved. Her guileless face, her appealing eyes, seemed
to beseech the protection of a masculine shield in a world which has no
mercy for the weak. She was born to be guided, to be led. It was my fear
of her simple trustful disposition which led me to urge her to marry me
secretly before I left England with Turold. Her parents did not favour me,
and they wished their daughter to marry well--there was an aunt from whom
she had expectations, and the aunt had a prospective husband in view for
her. I feared their joint influence. She consented willingly enough; she
was easy to persuade--on the eve of our parting. She clung to me
weeping--her husband.

"I was to make enough money to return to England to claim her in a year or
so--that was the plan. But I had been absent nearly three when I was left
on the island. And another twelve months passed before I reached England
again. Four years! A long time. Almost any combination of circumstances
can be brought about in such a period. People die, marry, or can be
forgotten as though they had never existed. It was my lot to be forgotten.

"I hastened to London, to my wife's old home, and learnt that the family
no longer lived there. Where had they gone to? The maid who opened the
door could not tell me--she did not know. At my request she went for her
mistress. The lady of the house came down to me, a tall slender woman,
indifferent, but well-bred enough to be polite. She had taken the house
from the Bruntons, she said. It was too large for them after their
daughter's marriage. It was dusk, and she could not see my face, but she
heard my startled exclamation--'Married? To whom?' To a Mr. Turold--a very
suitable match. They had been married for some months, and she was
expecting a child.

"How she gathered that last piece of information I do not know. Perhaps
she and Mrs. Brunton exchanged letters--women write to one another on the
slightest pretexts. That thought made me cautious. Fortunately, I had not
given my name. I thanked her, and rose to go. She offered to write down
the Bruntons' address for me (they had gone to live in the country), but I
said I could remember it. And I got away from the house in the gathering
darkness w