Mrs Wortle, when she perceived that her husband no longer called on Mrs Peacocke alone, became herself more assiduous in her visits, till at last she too entertained a great liking for the woman. When Mr Peacocke had been gone for nearly a month she had fallen into a habit of going across every day after the performance of her own domestic morning duties, and remaining in the schoolhouse for an hour. On one morning she found that Mrs Peacocke had just received a letter from New York, in which her husband had narrated his adventures so far. He had written from Southampton, but not after the revelation which had been made to him there as to the death of Ferdinand. He might have so done, but the information given to him had, at the spur of the moment, seemed to be so doubtful that he had refrained. Then he had been able to think of it all during the voyage, and from New York he had written at great length, detailing everything. Mrs Peacocke did not actually read out loud the letter, which was full of such terms of affection as are common between man and wife, knowing that her title to be called a wife was not admitted by Mrs Wortle; but she read much of it, and told all the circumstances as they were related.

“Then,” said Mrs Wortle, he certainly is — no more.” There came a certain accession of sadness to her voice, as she reflected that, after all, she was talking to this woman of the death of her undoubted husband.

“Yes; he is dead — at last.” Mrs Wortle uttered a deep sigh. It was dreadful to her to think that a woman should speak in that way of the death of her husband. “I know all that is going on in your mind,” said Mrs Peacocke, looking up into her face.

“Do you?”

“Every thought. You are telling yourself how terrible it is that a woman should speak of the death of her husband without a tear in her eye, without a sob — without one word of sorrow.”

“It is very sad.”

“Of course it is sad. Has it not all been sad? But what would you have me do? It is not because he was always bad to me — because he marred all my early life, making it so foul a blotch that I hardly dare to look back upon it from the quietness and comparative purity of these latter days. It is not because he has so treated me as to make me feel that it has been a misfortune to me to be born, that I now receive these tidings with joy. It is because of him who has always been good to me as the other was bad, who has made me wonder at the noble instincts of a man, as the other has made me shudder at his possible meanness.”

“It has been very hard upon you,” said Mrs Wortle.

“And hard upon him, who is dearer to me than my own soul. Think of his conduct to me! How he went away to ascertain the truth when he first heard tidings which made him believe that I was free to become his! How he must have loved me then, when, after all my troubles, he took me to himself at the first moment that was possible! Think, too, what he has done for me since — and I for him! How I have marred his life, while he has striven to repair mine! Do I not owe him everything?”

“Everything,” said Mrs Wortle — except to do what is wrong.”

“I did do what was wrong. Would not you have done so under such circumstances? Would not you have obeyed the man who had been to you so true a husband while he believed himself entitled to the name? Wrong! I doubt whether it was wrong. It is hard to know sometimes what is right and what is wrong. What he told me to do, that to me was right. Had he told me to go away and leave him, I should have gone — and have died. I suppose that would have been right.” She paused as though she expected an answer. But the subject was so difficult that Mrs Wortle was unable to make one. “I have sometimes wished that he had done so. But as I think of it when I am alone, I feel how impossible that would have been to him. He could not have sent me away. That which you call right would have been impossible to him whom I regard as the most perfect of human beings. As far as I know him, he is faultless — and yet, according to your judgment, he has committed a sin so deep that he must stand disgraced before the eyes of all men.”

“I have not said so.”

“It comes to that. I know how good you are; how much I owe to you. I know that Dr Wortle and yourself have been so kind to us, that were I not grateful beyond expression I should be the meanest human creature. Do not suppose that I am angry or vexed with you because you condemn me. It is necessary that you should do so. But how can I condemn myself — or how can I condemn him?”

“If you are both free now, it may be made right.”

“But how about repentance? Will it be all right though I shall not have repented? I will never repent. There are laws in accordance with which I will admit that I have done wrong; but had I not broken those laws when he bade me, I should have hated myself through all my life afterwards.”

“It was very different.”

“If you could know, Mrs Wortle, how difficult it would have been to go away and leave him! It was not till he came to me and told me that he was going down to Texas, to see how it had been with my husband, that I ever knew what it was to love a man. He had never said a word. He tried not to look it. But I knew that I had his heart and that he had mine. From that moment I have thought of him day and night. When I gave him my hand then as he parted from me, I gave it him as his own. It has been his to do what he liked with it ever since, let who might live or who might die. Ought I not to rejoice that he is dead?” Mrs Wortle could not answer the question. She could only shudder. “It was not by any will of my own”, continued the eager woman, “that I married Ferdinand Lefroy. Everything in our country was then destroyed. All that we loved and all that we valued had been taken away from us. War had destroyed everything. When I was just springing out of childhood, we were ruined. We had to go, all of us; women as well as men, girls as well as boys — and be something else than we had been. I was told to marry him.”

“That was wrong.”

“When everything is in ruin about you, what room is there for ordinary well-doing? It seemed then that he would have some remnant of property. Our fathers had known each other long. The wretched man whom drink afterwards made so vile might have been as good a gentleman as another, if things had gone well with him. He could not have been a hero like him whom I will always call my husband; but it is not given to every man to be a hero.”

“Was he bad always from the first?”

“He always drank — from his wedding day; and then Robert was with him, who was worse than he. Between them they were very bad. My life was a burden to me. It was terrible. It was a comfort to me even to be deserted and to be left. Then came this Englishman in my way; and it seemed to me, on a sudden, that the very nature of mankind was altered. He did not lie when he spoke. He was never debased by drink. He had other care than for himself. For himself, I think, he never cared. Since he has been here, in the school, have you found any cause of fault in him?”

“No, indeed.”

“No, indeed! nor ever will — unless it be a fault to love a woman as he loves me. See what he is doing now — where he has gone — what he has to suffer, coupled as he is with that wretch! And all for my sake!”

“For both your sakes.”

“He would have been none the worse had he chosen to part with me. He was in no trouble. I was not his wife; and he need only — bid me go. There would have been no sin with him then — no wrong. Had he followed out your right and your wrong, and told me that, as we could not be man and wife, we must just part, he would have been in no trouble — would he?”

“I don’t know how it would have been then,” said Mrs Wortle, who was by this time sobbing aloud in tears.

“No; nor I, nor I. I should have been dead — but he? He is a sinner now, so that he may not preach in your churches, or teach in your schools; so that your dear husband has to be ruined almost because he has been kind to him. He then might have preached in any church — have taught in any school. What am I to think that God will think of it? Will God condemn him?”

“We must leave that to Him,” sobbed Mrs Wortle.

“Yes; but in thinking of our souls we must reflect a little as to what we believe to be probable. He, you say, has sinned — is sinning still in calling me his wife. Am I not to believe that if he were called to his long account he would stand there pure and bright, in glorious garments — one fit for heaven, because he has loved others better than he has loved himself, because he has done to others as he might have wished that they should do to him? I do believe it............