needlessly harsh and cold—if I have appeared to shrink from your history, to withhold from you the support you had a right to look for at my hands. It is difficult to hold one's feelings always well in check. Who am I that I should condemn you? On what pinnacle of goodness do I stand, that I should look down frowningly upon your failings? If my sympathy, my pity, my friendship are of avail to you, be assured that they arc yours, now and always. There is a lesson for all in the errors of one. It is easy to judge severely; it is, as I have said, hard—very hard—always to act rightly."
Wilford wrung his friend's hand warmly.
"And for the future, Martin, what am I to do?"
"What can you do, Wilford? The past cannot be recalled: yet it may be atoned for."
"Atonement!" said Wilford, very mourn fully. "What atonement can I offer?"
"By the side of a great wrong all possible expiation seems very little indeed. Stay, tell me: when did you learn that your first wife—I must call her so—was still living?"
"Do you remember, a few days back, my coming here with you, after dining at home?" He shuddered, the word seemed now so painful, so full of sorrow to him. "I left suddenly, shortly afterwards. You thought me ill. I had just been reading a letter taken by chance from my pocket to light a cigar with."
"I remember it all, of course, perfectly."
"That letter was from Madame Pichot. In it she demanded an interview. She informed me that my wife, Regine, was living—was in London—with the writer of the letter, in Stowe Street, Strand. You may judge that I was startled, terrified by that letter, as though a bolt from heaven had fallen at my feet."
"What did you do?"
"I was strangely bewildered. I tried to doubt the information conveyed by the letter j but I could not. Assurances of its truth seemed to be again and again rung loudly in my ear. I returned homo. Yet I felt that, Regine still living, I was guilty of a crime if I remained in the presence of Violet, assuming to be her husband. I made excuses: pretended that I had undertaken a mission to Paris which would keep me from her for some days. I left her that night entirely unsuspicious of the real cause of my absence. I have not seen her since. I have been living since at an hotel in Covent Garden, exploring this dreadful secret. Now, all hope is over. I have seen Regine. Violet is no longer my wife. Heaven pity her!"
"You have not seen Violet since?" Martin asked eagerly.
"No. I have not dared to meet her," Wilford answered with anguish. "I could not see her. I could not even write to her."
Martin watched him for a few moments.
"No," he muttered. "I cannot tell him. I must not. It would be more than he could bear."
"For the future?" he asked.
"Tell me, Martin," cried Wilford, piteously. "What must I do?"
"I know what your first thought has been, my poor friend; a natural one perhaps, a human one certainly; to preserve the present at all cost; to conceal and tide over, if possible; to yield to the demands made upon you; to buy the silence of these Pichots, and the absence of your first wife, at any sacrifice. Upon these terms you think you can be sure of happiness now, and are content to take your chance as to that happiness being again. disturbed by-and-by."
"I have thought this," said Wilford, humbly.
Martin, with evident effort, continued.
"It is not for me to censure such views. There are many men who would be found to indorse such a plan with their approval, as, under all circum stances, the wisest, the safest, the most fitting, the most likely to secure the peace of mind of Violet and yourself, and the future of your child. The secret is known to very few; death may at any time diminish their number; may remove the whole cause of your unhappiness. Regine dead, the claims of her relatives upon you become of small consideration. The secret may never be known; there are many secrets that are never known, that, humanly speaking, never can be known. It is for you to decide."
"Yet there would be no real happiness in this," cried Wilford. "Could I hear such a weight of wrongdoing? Could I support by Violet's side a life that would be a perpetual lie—a ceaseless dread?"
"It is in trials like this," said Martin. solemnly, "we feel the need of support from Heaven! How to act rightly! It is the problem of our lives. I am but a blind guide, Wilford. Yet it seems to me your first impulse was the true one; to spring from some innate perception God has planted in our souls, and which teaches us to distinguish the good and true. There has been wrongdoing enough, but it has the palliation that it was unconscious wrong. Violet is not your wife. You are guilty of a deliberate crime if you now try to trick her into the belief that she is; if you ask her any more to regard you as her husband. Let the truth be told:—there will be sorrow, but there will be no sin; there will be cause for her anger-none for her contempt. You are a gentleman-a Hadfield. Be just and fear not. You will part from her for ever. You will have wronged her cruelly, but she is a woman—she loves you—she will pardon you."
"It will kill her!"
"But she will die with a prayer for you upon her lips."
"And our child?"
"It is hers; do not think to part her from it. She will love you ever through her child. If she sinks down under this great trial, she will bequeath to you the care of her child—a sacred trust-which you will, I am sure, Wilford, respect as it merits. For the rest, you must trust in Heaven. You will have made all the atonement that is possible."
"I will do this: for it is right. God bless you, Martin; thank you for your good counsel. I have been groping my way to the light; your kind hand has led me into the true path. All shall be as you say."
