frained,
from an instinctive sense that there was something behind--that Godfrey
had something else to tell her. Presently he lifted his eyes to her
face, and kept them fixed on her, as he said--

"Everything comes to light, Nancy, sooner or later. When God Almighty
wills it, our secrets are found out. I've lived with a secret on my
mind, but I'll keep it from you no longer. I wouldn't have you know it
by somebody else, and not by me--I wouldn't have you find it out after
I'm dead. I'll tell you now. It's been "I will" and "I won't" with me
all my life--I'll make sure of myself now."

Nancy's utmost dread had returned. The eyes of the husband and wife
met with awe in them, as at a crisis which suspended affection.

"Nancy," said Godfrey, slowly, "when I married you, I hid something
from you--something I ought to have told you. That woman Marner found
dead in the snow--Eppie's mother--that wretched woman--was my wife:
Eppie is my child."

He paused, dreading the effect of his confession. But Nancy sat quite
still, only that her eyes dropped and ceased to meet his. She was pale
and quiet as a meditative statue, clasping her hands on her lap.

"You'll never think the same of me again," said Godfrey, after a little
while, with some tremor in his voice.

She was silent.

"I oughtn't to have left the child unowned: I oughtn't to have kept it
from you. But I couldn't bear to give you up, Nancy. I was led away
into marrying her--I suffered for it."

Still Nancy was silent, looking down; and he almost expected that she
would presently get up and say she would go to her father's. How could
she have any mercy for faults that must seem so black to her, with her
simple, severe notions?

But at last she lifted up her eyes to his again and spoke. There was
no indignation in her voice--only deep regret.

"Godfrey, if you had but told me this six years ago, we could have done
some of our duty by the child. Do you think I'd have refused to take
her in, if I'd known she was yours?"

At that moment Godfrey felt all the bitterness of an error that was not
simply futile, but had defeated its own end. He had not measured this
wife with whom he had lived so long. But she spoke again, with more
agitation.

"And--Oh, Godfrey--if we'd had her from the first, if you'd taken to
her as you ought, she'd have loved me for her mother--and you'd have
been happier with me: I could better have bore my little baby dying,
and