Had she gone on
loving in spite of all, such love, she thought, must have brought death
into her soul.
She did not know how to name her husband now. Even in thinking of him she
would not call him "Knight."
What a mockery the name had been! How he must have laughed to know that
she was fool enough to believe him a knight of chivalry, who had come
like St. George to rescue her from the dragon!
She knew at last that the name he had not wished her to see in the parish
register was Michael Donaldson. That meant, she supposed, that her name
was Donaldson, too; a name he had dragged through the mire.
He pretended to love her. But such a man could not speak the truth.
He had tried to excuse himself in every way. To talk of love and its
purifying influence was only one of these ways. He would not even have
confessed if he had not fallen into the mistake of thinking she
understood that he was a thief, or head of a gang of thieves.
He seemed almost to boast of what he was.... Oh, how horrible life had
become, and how she wished that it were over! She wondered if it would
be wicked to pray that her heart might stop beating to-night.
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