And
so you protested. So you assured me of--your regard."
He came a step nearer. The movement was almost involuntary.
"I have prayed to God that some day he might bring me face to face with
the person who sold my brother's life. He has granted me my prayer.
But it never entered my wildest dreams that it could be the woman I
married. I never questioned your past. To me it was sufficient that
you had taught me the meaning of love. To me you must be all you
seemed. No more, no less. God help me, I had no imagination to tell
me that so fair a body could contain so foul a heart. Were you not my
wife, were you a man, I should know how to deal with that which lies
between us. As it is you must thank the difference in our sex for that
which nothing else could have done for you. As yet I have not had the
time to arrange the details of our future. To-morrow, perhaps, things
will have cleared in my mind. I shall sleep to-night over at Bud's----"
"Oh, Jeff, Jeff, have mercy. I----"
"Mercy? Mercy?" A sudden fire blazed up where only a frigid light had
shone.
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