Guilty Bonds

“It seems your headache has left you,” I exclaimed curtly, without answering her question.

“Yes, I feel better this morning.”

“In fact, the pain disappeared as soon as you left me last night, eh?”

“What! – what do you mean, Frank?” she asked anxiously, in a strange voice, a sudden pallor overspreading her statuesque face.

“You plead ignorance; it is exactly what I expected. My meaning, I should have thought was pretty clear. You are not usually so dull.”

“I do not understand you.”

Her eyes wavered, she trembled with excitement, and I could see she was bent upon concealing the truth. This increased my anger.

“It is a lie!” I said sharply. “You are trying to deceive me, but I know the truth at last.”

“Deceiving you! Why, what have I done that you should accuse me in this manner? Surely you are not yourself this morning?”

“You left me here writing last night, did you not?”

“Yes,” she answered, gloomily.

“And thought that I was safe for a few hours, and would not keep an eye upon your movements?”

“What has that to do with it?”

“Simply this. A couple of hours after you shammed illness and left me, I went out into the Dene, and there I saw – ”

“There you saw me!” she cried wildly, swaying forward, and clutching at the back of a chair for support. “Dieu! it is true, Frank; yes, true, I – I confess – I deceived you.”

“Then you admit it!” I ejaculated, hardly believing my own ears.

“Yes; yes, I do,” she moaned in tones of anguish. “But forgive me, and say no more about the occurrence. It was unfortunate, and no harm has been done.”

I tried with difficulty to restrain my passionate indignation. Such a cool request maddened me.

“Unfortunate?” I cried. “No; for me it is the reverse, for it has opened my eyes to your faithlessness. Forgive you this! The thing’s absurd!”

“I unfaithful!” she repeated, looking vacantly about her, and clasping her hands. “I never thought it could be misconstrued into that! I unfaithful! Am I not your wife?” and with heaving breast and tearful eyes she bent her head as if to avert my gaze.

“Yes; you are my wife, but she who brings dishonour upon her husband is unworthy that name,” I said, in a tone of disgust.

“I have not brought you dishonour,” she declared, drawing herself up with dignity.

“You have, I tell you! Late last night you met a strange man in the Dene, and that man is your lover!” I retorted, decisively.

“That I am to blame, Frank, I admit,” she said, dashing the tears from her eyes, “but he is not my lover. I swear you are mistaken. Nothing was further from my thoughts.”

“Oh, don’t tell me that! I know enough of the world to distinguish the meaning of such clandestine meetings,” I replied, sickened at the manner she was endeavouring to clear herself.

“There is no love between us,” she exclaimed; “but,” – and she paused.

“Then why meet him in such a secret manner?” I demanded, adding with a sneer, “perhaps you will tell me next that it was not you I saw, but a twin sister.”

She still hesitated, with her eyes cast down as if in thought.

“You can give no answer,” I continued with warmth, “because you are guilty.”

“Guilty only of meeting him,” she said, drawing a deep breath: “but I assure you there is no love between us – nay, I swear it – only a secret tie.”

“I don’t wish you to perjure yourself,” I remarked coldly. “You ‘assure me’! What utter nonsense.”

“I tell you the truth.”

“You have told me so many falsehoods that a little truth is certainly refreshing!” I replied with sarcasm.

“I cannot force you to believe me,” she continued in a low voice, still steadying herself by the chair.

“Do you think me such a confounded idiot, then, as to believe you could have business with a strange man at that hour of the night?”

“Business, nevertheless, was the object of our meeting.”

“Bah! your excuses are positively intolerable. What was the nature of this business?”

“You must not know,” she replied, hesitatingly.

Her brows contracted, and her tiny hands clenched tightly upon the chair-back, as if summoning all her courage to be firm.

“Ah! the old story. More mystery. Look here! I’ve had enough of it!” I shouted in anger. “In fact, I’ve had too much of it already, and I demand an explanation, or you and I must part!”

A shudder ran through her slim frame as I spoke, and she lost her support and almost fell. With a sudden movement she pushed back the mass of dark curls from her forehead, her bright eyes gleamed with an earnest fire as they met mine, and she said, hysterically, “You are cruel – you do not know how I suffer, for your surmise is not correct in the smallest degree. You, my husband, I love, and no one else. And you accuse me. Mon Dieu!”

My self-control was very nearly exhausted. If she had been a man I might have struck her! As it was, I was powerless, and as I looked at her my eyes must have gleamed with fury.

“Last night proved the great extent of your love for me,” I exclaimed fiercely.

All that latent fire which exists in every woman’s nature, ready to burst into flame when her self-respect is wounded, was aglow in Vera as I uttered that retort.

“I cannot see that it did. I have done absolutely nothing of which I am ashamed,” was her answer.

She spoke with a cool, reckless candour that shocked me. My thoughts were soured by disappointment.

“What!” I cried, “have you no compunction?”

“I am sorry it was my ill-luck to be seen by you, and thus cause you unnecessary pain.”

“Oh, spare me your expressions of sorrow, pray,” I said, in a hard tone. “They are out of place.”

“I had thought to keep his presence a secret,” she continued in that dead-calm voice, which was like some one speaking in a dream.