He interrupted her.
"Do not call me good!" he said, faintly--"I cannot bear it--I cannot!"
She looked at him, and there were tears in her eyes.
"I'm afraid you will have to bear it!" she said, softly--"For you ARE good!--you have always been good to ME! And I do honestly believe that God means everything for the best as you say, because now I am a cripple, I have escaped once and for all from the marriage my aunt was trying to force me into with Lord Roxmouth. I thank God every minute of my life for that!"
"You never loved him?"
John's voice was very low and tremulous as he asked this question.
"Never!" she answered, in the same low tone. "How could you think it?"
"I did not know--I was not quite sure---" he murmured.
"No, I never loved him!" she said, earnestly--"I always feared and hated him! And he did not love me,--he only cared for the money my aunt would have left me had I married him. But I have always wanted to be loved for myself--and this has been my great trouble. If anyone had ever really cared for me, I think it would have made me good and wise and full of trust in God--I should have been a much better woman than I am--I am sure I should! People say that the love I want is only found in poems and story books, and that my fancies are quite ridiculous. Perhaps they are. But I can't help it. I am just myself and no other!" She smiled a little--then went on--"Lord Roxmouth has a great social position,--but, to my mind, he has degraded it. I could not have married a man for whom I had no respect. You see I can talk quite easily about all this because it is past. For of course now I am a cripple, the very idea of marriage for me is all over. And I am really very glad it is so. No one can spread calumnies about me, or compromise my name any more. And even the harm Lord Roxmouth meant to try and do to YOU, has been stopped. So this time God HAS answered my prayers."
John looked up suddenly.
"Did you pray---?" he began in a choked voice-then checked himself, and said quickly--"Dear child, I do not think Lord Roxmouth could have ever done me any harm!"
"Ah, you don't know him as I do!" and she sighed--"He stops at nothing. He will employ any base tool, any mean spy, to gain his own immediate purposes. And--and--" she hesitated--"you know I wrote to you about it---he saw us in the picture gallery---"