uel toward
it in thought and feeling, and if I had not watched the treasure of my
heart and guarded it unceasingly he would have been cruel to it in deed,
too. I know it and Eliza knows it. Oh, why did you make me speak of it?
I ought not to say such things. It is wrong."

"Why wrong, Christine? Why do you feel it to be wrong? Tell me."

"Because he is my husband," she said sternly, "and I took solemn vows to
love, to serve and to obey him. I said 'for better or for worse.' I said
'till death us do part.' The God who will judge me knows whether I have
kept them. The love one cannot control; but one can force one's self to
serve and obey, and that I have tried to do."

"And you have done it. I have felt that I could kneel and worship you
for it--but, Christine, the truth is too evident to be avoided. He is
unworthy of you. Suppose you could be free from him?"

"Divorce?" she said with a sort of horror. "Never! I scarcely know what
it is--but marriage seems to me a thing indissoluble and inviolate. I
cannot forget that he is the father of my child. I could never wish, on
that account, to be free from him."

"Christine, there is another way. Oh, my poor, poor child, you have
never even thought of it, and it breaks my heart to tell you. But there
is a way you might be free from him without divorce--a sad and dreadful
way, my poor little sister, but remember, I implore you, that there is
light beyond the darkness. Oh, cannot you think what I mean?"

She shook her head.

"I know he is not dead," she said; "there is no other way that I know."

"Suppose--my poor girl, try to be brave now, for you will have to know
it--suppose your marriage to him was not legal--was no marriage at all?"

Her face got scarlet.

"That is not possible," she said, "and if it were, it would make no
difference. If he did it without knowing--"

"Christine, Christine, he did not! He knew it, my child. Prepare
yourself for the very worst. He deceived you wilfully. Oh, Christine,
when he was married to you there was an impossible barrier between you.
It was such a thing as you could not dream of. Give me your hands and
try to feel that your brother bears this sorrow with you." He caught her
other hand also and pressed them both between his own.

"Christine, he was married already. When he married you, he had already
a wife and child."

She wrenched her hands away and sprang to her feet. A low cry broke from
her. Noel felt that it was he who