"I--I am wicked!" she wailed. "Oh, I have done that which has damned me forever, Carus!--forever and ever. I can not wed you--I love you so!--yet I can not wed you! What wild folly drove me to go with you? What devil has dragged me here to tempt you--whom I love so truly? Oh, God pity us both--God pity us!"
"Elsin," I said hoarsely, "you are mad to say it! Is there anything on earth to bar us from wedlock?"
"Yes, Carus, yes!" she cried. "It is--it is too late!"
"Too late!" I repeated, stunned.
"Aye--for I am a wedded wife! Now you know! Oh, this is the end of all!"
A while she lay there sobbing her heart out, I upright on my knees beside her, staring at blank space, which reeled and reeled, so that the room swam all awry, and I strove to steady it with fixed gaze, lest the whole world come crashing upon us.
At last she spoke, lifting her tear-marred face from the floor to the bed, forehead resting heavily in her hands: "I ask your pardon--for the sin I have committed. Hear me out--that is my penance; spurn me--that is my punishment!"
She pressed her wet eyes, shuddering. "Are you listening, Carus? The night before I sailed from Canada--he sought me----"
"Who?" My lips found the question, but no sound came.
"Walter Butler! O God! that I have done this thing!"
In the dreadful silence I heard her choking back the cry that strangled her. And after a while she found her voice again: "I was a child--a vain, silly thing of moods and romance, ignorant of men, innocent of the world, flattered by the mystery with which he cloaked his passion, awed, fascinated by this first melancholy lover who had wrung from me through pity, through vanity, through a vague fear of him, perhaps, a promise of secret betrothal."
She lifted her head and set her chin on one clinched hand, yet never looked at me: "Sir Frederick was abed; I all alone in the great arms-gallery, nose to the diamond window-panes, and looking out at the moon--and waiting for him. Suddenly I saw him there below.... Heaven is witness I meant no harm nor dreamed of any. He was not alone. My heart and my affections were stirred to warmth--I sailing from Canada and friends next day at dawn--and I went down to the terrace and out among the trees where he stood, his companion moving off among the trees. I had come only to bid him the farewell I had promised, Carus--I never dreamed of what he meant to do."