I
think it was my ten thousand pounds, for once I had a whole ten
thousand pounds of my own, my poor mother left it me, and it was tied
up so that my father could not touch it. Well, of course, when I
married, my husband would not have any settlements, and so he took it,
every farthing."
"And what did he do with it?"
"Spent it upon some other woman in London--most of it. I found him
out; he gave her thousands of pounds at once."
"Well, I should not have thought that he was so generous," he said
with a laugh.
She paused a moment and covered her face with her hand, and then went
on: "If you only knew, Edward, if you had the faintest idea what my
life was till a year and a half ago, when I first saw you, you would
pity me and understand why I am bad, and passionate, and jealous, and
everything that I ought not to be. I never had any happiness as a girl
--how could I in such a home as ours?--and then almost before I was a
woman I was handed over to that man. Oh, how I hated him, and what I
endured!"
"Yes, it can't have been very pleasant."
"Pleasant--but there, we have done with each other now--we don't even
speak much except in public, that's my price for holding my tongue
about the lady in London and one or two other little things--so what
is the use of talking of it? It was a horrible nightmare, but it has
gone.
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