me. If I lose you I shall die."

Her face is transfigured as she speaks--her hands still stretched out.

"O Victor, come!" she says; "let the past be dead and forgotten. My
darling, come back!"

But he shrinks away as those soft hands touch him, and pushes her off.

"Let me go!" he cries; "don't touch me, Inez! It can never be. You
don't know what you ask!"

He stands confronting her now, pale as herself, with eyes alight. She
recoils like one who has received a blow.

"Can never be?" she repeats.

"Can never be!" he answers. "I am what you have called me, Inez, a
traitor and a coward. I stand here perjured before God, and you, and
my dead mother. It can never be. I can never marry you. I am married
already!"

The blow has fallen--the horrible, brutal blow. She stands looking at
him--she hardly seems to comprehend. There is a pause--the firelight
flickers, they hear the rain lashing the windows, the soughing of the
gale in the trees. Then Victor Catheron bursts forth:

"I don't ask you to forgive me--it is past all that. I make no excuse;
the deed is done. I met her, and I loved her. She has been my wife for
sixteen months, and--there is a son. Inez, don't look at me like that!