'Tie these hanging ends of ribbon to my
wrist,' were her words. 'Tie them tight; a knot under and a bow
on top. I am going out - There, don't say anything - What you
want to talk about will keep till tomorrow. For one night more I
am going to make merry - to - to enjoy myself.' She was laughing.
I thought her horribly callous and trembled with such an
unspeakable repulsion that I had difficulty in making the knot.
To speak at all would have been impossible. Neither did I dare
to look in her face. I was touching the hand and she kept on
laughing - such a hollow laugh covering up such an awful resolve!
When she turned to give me that last injunction about the note,
this resolve glared still in her eyes."
"And you never suspected?"
"Not for an instant. I chid not do justice either to her misery or
to her conscience. I fear that I have never done her justice in
anyway. I thought her light, pleasure-loving. I did not know that
it was assumed to hide a terrible secret."
"Then you had no knowledge of the contract she had entered into
while a school-girl?"
"Not in the least. Another woman, and not myself, had been her
confidante; a woman who has since died. No intimation of her first
unfortunate marriage had ever reached me till Mr. Jeffrey rushed
in upon me that Tuesday morning with her dreadful confession on
his lips.
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