My mouth felt parched, but I contrived to say:

"Then you can hold out no hope for me?"

"God knows I can't."

"Although I do not love this man I must live with him as his wife?"

"It is hard, very hard, but there seems to be no help for it."

I rose to my feet, and went back to the window. A wild impulse of rebellion was coming over me.

"I shall feel like a bad woman," I said.

"Don't say that," said Father Dan. "You are married to the man anyway."

"All the same I shall feel like my husband's mistress--his married mistress, his harlot."

Father Dan was shocked, and the moment the words were out of my mouth I was more frightened than I had ever been before, for something within seemed to have forced them out of me.

When I recovered possession of my senses Father Dan, nervously fumbling with the silver cross that hung over his cassock, was talking of the supernatural effect of the sacrament of marriage. It was God Who joined people together, and whom God joined together no man might put asunder.

No circumstances either, no trial or tribulation. Could it be thought that a bond so sacred, so indissoluble, was ever made without good effect? No, the Almighty had His own ways with His children, and this great mystery of holy wedlock was one of them.

"So don't lose heart, my child. Who knows what may happen yet? God works miracles now just as He did in the old days. You may come ... yes, you may come to love your husband, and then--then all will be well."

Suddenly out of my despair and my defiance a new thought came to me. It came with the memory of the emotion I had experienced during the marriage service, and it thrilled me through and through.

"Father Dan?" I said, with a nervous cry, for my heart was fluttering again.

"What is it, my child?"

It was hard to say what I was thinking about, but with a great effort I stammered it out at last. I should be willing to leave the island with my husband, and live under the same roof with him, and bear his name, so that there might be no trouble, or scandal, and nobody except ourselves might ever know that there was anything dividing us, any difference of any kind between us, if he, on his part, would promise--firmly and faithfully promise--that unless and until I came to love him he would never claim my submission as a wife.

While I spoke I hardly dared to look at Father Dan, fearing he would shake his head again, perhaps reprove me, perhaps laugh at me. But his eyes which had been moist began to sparkle and smile.

"You mean that?" he asked.

"Yes."

"And you will go away with him on that condition?"

"Yes, yes."

"Then he must agree to it."

The pure-minded old priest saw no difficulties, no dangers, no risks of breakdown in my girlish scheme. Already my husband had got all he had bargained for. He had got my father's money in exchange for his noble name, and if he wanted more, if he wanted the love of his wife, let him earn it, let him win it.

"That's only right, only fair. It will be worth winning, too--better worth winning than all your father's gold and silver ten times over. I can tell him that much anyway."

He had risen to his feet in his excitement, the simple old priest with his pure heart and his beautiful faith in me.

"And you, my child, you'll try to love him in return--promise you will."

A shiver ran through me when Father Dan said that--a sense of the repugnance I felt for my husband almost stifled me.

"Promise me," said Father Dan, and though my face must have been scarlet, I promised him.

"That's right. That alone will make him a better man. He may be all that people say, but who can measure the miraculous influence of a good woman?"

He was making for the door.

"I must go downstairs now and speak to your husband. But he'll agree.

Why shouldn't he? I know he's afraid of a public scandal, and if he attempts to refuse I'll tell him that... . But no, that will be quite unnecessary. Good-bye, my child! If I don't come back you'll know that everything has been settled satisfactorily. You'll be happy yet. I'm sure you will. Ah, what did I say about the mysterious power of that solemn and sacred sacrament? Good-bye!"

I meant what I had said. I meant to do what I had promised. God knows I did. But does a woman ever know her own heart? Or is heaven alone the judge of it?

At four o'clock that afternoon my husband left Ellan for England. I went with him.

FORTIETH CHAPTER

Having made my bargain I set myself to fulfil the conditions of it. I had faithfully promised to try to love my husband and I prepared to do so.

Did not love require that a wife should look up to and respect and even reverence the man she had married? I made up my mind to do that by shutting my eyes to my husband's obvious faults and seeing only his better qualities.

What disappointments were in store for me! What crushing and humiliating disillusionments!

On the night of our arrival in London we put up at a fashionable hotel in a quiet but well-known part of the West-end, which is inhabited chiefly by consulting physicians and celebrated surgeons. Here, to my surprise, we were immediately discovered, and lines of visitors waited upon my husband the following morning.

I thought they were his friends, and a ridiculous little spurt of pride came to me from heaven knows where with the idea that my husband must be a man of some importance in the metropolis.

But I discovered they were his creditors, money-lenders and bookmakers, to whom he owed debts of "honour" which he had been unable or unwilling to disclose to my father and his advocate.

One of my husband's visitors was a pertinacious little man who came early and stayed late. He was a solicitor, and my husband was obviously in some fear of him. The interviews between them, while they were closeted together morning after morning in one of our two sitting-rooms, were long and apparently unpleasant, for more than once I caught the sound of angry words on both sides, with oaths and heavy blows upon the table.

But towards the end of the week, my husband's lawyer arrived in London, and after that the conversations became more pacific.

One morning, as I sat writing a letter in the adjoining room, I heard laughter, the popping of corks, the jingling of glasses, and the drinking of healths, and I judged that the, difficult and disagreeable business had been concluded.

At the close of the interview I heard the door opened and my husband going into the outer corridor to see his visitors to the lift, and then something prompted me--God alone knows what--to step into the room they had just vacated.

It was thick with tobacco smoke. An empty bottle of champagne (with three empty wine glasses) was on the table, and on a desk by the window were various papers, including a sheet of foolscap which bore a seal and several signatures, and a thick packet of old letters bound together with a piece of purple ribbon.

Hardly had I had time to recognise these documents when my husband returned to the room, and by the dark expression of his face I saw instantly that he thought I had looked at them.

"No matter!" he said, without any preamble. "I might as well tell you at once and have done with it."