recognized
her, he passed one hand across his brow, the other he rested on the
mantel-piece. There was a momentary twitching of her lips, and he
involuntarily remarked that in the time that had passed since they last
met she had grown thinner.

"Come with me," she said in a trembling whisper. "Mercy's child is dead,
and the poor girl is asking for you in her great trouble."

He did not speak at once, but shaded his eyes from the lamp. Then he
said, in a voice unlike his own:

"I will follow you."

She had held the door in her hand, and now she turned to go. He took one
step toward her.

"Greta, have you nothing more to say to me?" he asked.

"What do you wish me to say?"

He did not answer; his eyes fell before her.

There was a slight wave of her hand as she added:

"The same room ought never to contain both you and me--it never should
have done so--but this is not my errand."

"I have deserved it," he said, humbly.

"The cruel work is done--yes, done past undoing. You have not heard the
last of it. Then, since you ask me what I have to say to you, it is
this: That man, that instrument of your malice who is now your master,
has been to say that he can compel me to live with him, or imprison me
if I refuse. Can he do it?"

Hugh Ritson lifted his eyes with a blind, vacant stare.

"To live with him? Him? You to live with him?" he said, absently.

"To live under his roof--those were his words. Can he do it? I mean if
the law recognizes him as my husband?"

Hugh Ritson's eyes wandered.

"Do it? Your husband?" he echoed, incoherently.

"I know well what he wants," said Greta, breathing heavily; "it is not
myself he is anxious for--but he can not have the one without the
other."

"The one without the other?" echoed Hugh Ritson in a low tone. Then he
strode across the room in visible agitation.

"Greta, that man is--. Do you know who he is?"

"Paul Drayton, the innkeeper of Hendon," she answered, calmly.

"No, no; he is your--"

He paused, his brows knit, his fingers interlaced. Her bosom swelled.

"Would you tell me that he is my husband?" she said indignantly.

Hugh Ritson again passed his hand across his brow.

"Greta, I have deserved your distrust," he said, in an altered tone.

"What is done can never be undone," she answered.

His voice had regained its calmness, but his manner was still agitated.

"I may serve you even yet," he said; "I have done you too much wrong; I
know that."

"