"You have heard it all now," said Mrs. Askerton at last.
"Do you not know?" And as she spoke Clara pressed her arm still closer. "Do you not know yet?" Then, turning herself half round, she clasped the other woman full in her arms, and kissed her forehead and her lips.
"But you will go away, and people will tell you that you are wrong."
"What people?" said Clara, thinking as she spoke of the whole family at Aylmer Park.
"I have no husband,--as yet,--to order me what to think or what not to think."
"No;--not quite as yet. But you will tell him all this."
"Never mind. Captain Aylmer is not my husband,--not as yet. If he takes me, he must take me as I am, not as he might possibly have wished me to be. Lady Aylmer--"
"Yes. Lady Aylmer is one of those hard, severe women who never forgive."
"Ah, I see it all now. I understand it all. Clara, you must forget me, and come here no more. You shall not be ruined because you are generous."
"Ruined! If Lady Aylmer's displeasure can ruin me, I must put up with ruin. I will not accept her for my guide. I am too old, and have had my own way too long. Do not let that thought trouble you. In this matter I shall judge for myself. I have judged for myself already."
"I do not know. Poor papa is very ill. If he were well I would tell him, and he would think as I do."
"I think so. Do you know that I remembered him the first moment that I saw him. But what could I do? When you mentioned to me my old name, my real name, how could I be honest? I have been driven to do that which has made honesty to me impossible. My life has been a lie; and yet how could I help it? I must live somewhere,--and how could I live anywhere without deceit?"
"Sad indeed! But what could I do? Of course I was wrong in the beginning. Though how am I to regret it, when it has given me such a husband as I have? Ah!--if you could know it all, I think,--I think you would forgive me."
Then by degrees she told it all, and Clara was there for hours listening to her story. The reader will not care to hear more of it than he has heard. Nor would Clara have desired any closer revelation; but as it is often difficult to obtain a confidence, so is it impossible to stop it in the midst of its effusion. Mrs. Askerton told the history of her life,--of her first foolish engagement, her belief, her half-belief, in the man's reformation, of the miseries which resulted from his vices, of her escape and shame, of her welcome widowhood, and of her second marriage. And as she told it, she paused at every point to insist on the goodness of him who was now her husband. "I shall tell him this," she said at last, "as I do everything; and then he will know that I have in truth got a friend."