r--at present!"

"But what is to prevent you?" I queried. "You are now my wife. This is
our wedding-night; and surely your place is with me!" The wail in her
voice as she answered touched me to the quick:

"Oh, I know, I know! There is no dearer wish in my heart--there can be
none--than to share my husband's home. Oh, my dear, my dear, if you only
knew what it would be to me to be with you always! But indeed I may
not--not yet! I am not free! If you but knew how much that which has
happened to-night has cost me--or how much cost to others as well as to
myself may be yet to come--you would understand. Rupert"--it was the
first time she had ever addressed me by name, and naturally it thrilled
me through and through--"Rupert, my husband, only that I trust you with
all the faith which is in perfect love--mutual love, I dare not have done
what I have done this night. But, dear, I know that you will bear me
out; that your wife's honour is your honour, even as your honour is mine.
My honour is given to this; and you can help me--the only help I can have
at present--by trusting me. Be patient, my beloved, be patient! Oh, be
patient for a little longer! It shall not be for long. So soon as ever
my soul is freed I shall come to you, my husband; and we shall never part
again. Be content for a while! Believe me that I love you with my very
soul; and to keep away from your dear side is more bitter for me than
even it can be for you! Think, my dear one, I am not as other women are,
as some day you shall clearly understand. I am at the present, and shall
be for a little longer, constrained by duties and obligations put upon me
by others, and for others, and to which I am pledged by the most sacred
promises--given not only by myself, but by others--and which I must not
forgo. These forbid me to do as I wish. Oh, trust me, my beloved--my
husband!"

She held out her hands appealingly. The moonlight, falling through the
thinning forest, showed her white cerements. Then the recollection of
all she must have suffered--the awful loneliness in that grim tomb in the
Crypt, the despairing agony of one who is helpless against the
unknown--swept over me in a wave of pity. What could I do but save her
from further pain? And this could only be by showing her my faith and
trust. If she was to go back to that dreadful charnel-house, she would
at least take with her the remembrance that one who loved her and whom
she loved--