And the nearer he drew to her the more insanely he loved her,--loved her, though he knew the fate which waited for her, the heart-break he was preparing for himself.
At last he told her. He had meant to keep his secret until she died, but in spite of himself it came to his lips.
In September it was,--one of those glorious autumn days when the year seems at flood-tide, full of a ripe glory, which thrills an imaginative temperament as does no tender verdure of spring, no bravery of summer. Pauline Colchester, sensitive to all such influences as few are, was electrified by it. Dr. Huger had never seen her so radiant, so full of vitality. It seemed to him impossible that she should die. If he had her for his own,--if he could make her happy,--could he not guard her from every shock or excitement, and keep her in such a charmed atmosphere of peace that the worn-out heart might last for many a year?
It was the idlest of lover's dreams, the emptiest and most baseless of hopes, which he would have called any other man insane for cherishing. But he grasped at it eagerly, and, before he knew what he was doing, he had breathed out his longing at the feet of Miss Colchester.
"Is it possible," she said, after a silent space, "that you could have loved me so well? That you would have absorbed into your own the poor remnant of my life, and cherished it to the end? I ought to be sorry for your sake; but how can I, when just such a love is what I have starved for all my life? I have no right to it now. I am Mrs., not Miss, Colchester. I was Pauline Angereau before Ralph Colchester found me and married me. I had money and, I suppose, beauty; perhaps he coveted them both. He made me believe that he loved me with all his heart; and then, when I was once his wife, he began torturing me to death with his neglect and his cruelty. He was a bad man; and I don't believe there is a woman on earth strong enough to have saved him from himself. I bore everything, for two years, in silence. Then I found that it was killing me, and, in one of his frequent absences, I came away to die in peace. When it is all over, Lisette will write to him. He will have the fortune he longed for, without the encumbrance of which he tired so soon. You must not see me any more. Bound as I am, feeling what you feel, there would be sin in our meeting. And yet I shall die easier for knowing that, once in my life, I have been loved for myself alone."