Still no reply, still no movement on Mollie’s part.  She stood half bowed, her head averted, her face covered by her hands.

“It drove me into a sort of frenzy, the thought of your becoming Sir Roger Trajenna’s wife.  If he had been a young man, and you had loved him, I would have bowed my head, as before a shrine, and gone my way and tried to forgive you and wish you happiness.  But I knew better.  I knew you were selling yourself for an old man’s rank, for an old man’s gold, and I tried to despise and hate you.  I tried to think that no base act I could commit would be baser than the marriage you were ready to make.  A plan—­mad, impracticable as my own mad love, flashed across my brain, and, like many other things impossible in theory, I did it!  It seemed an impossiblity to tear you from the very altar, and make you my wife, all unknown, but I did it.  I had this house here, uninhabited, furnished.  I had a friend ready to help me to the death.  I disguised myself like a hero of romance, I decoyed you here, forced you to consent, I married you!”

Still mute, still dropping, still averted, still motionless.  There was a tremor in Hugh Ingelow’s steady voice when he went on.

“How hard it was for me, what a cruel, cold-blooded monster I felt myself, how my very heart of hearts was touched by your suffering here, I can not tell.  Besides, it would seem like mockery, since all my compassion did not make me spare you.  But from the moment you set foot here I considered it too late; and then, besides, Mollie, I was mad with love of you.  I could not let you go.  You yielded—­you consented to barter yourself for freedom, as once before you consented for gold.  I brought the Reverend Raymond Rashleigh here—­he married me under my second name of Ernest—­as you know.”

He paused again.  Still no sign, and then he went on: 

“I let you go.  I did not dare reveal myself, but I kept my promise.  Hate me, Mollie, as you will; despise me, as you must—­but try and think how dearly I love you.  I would lay down my life for you, my darling Mollie.  That would be an easy sacrifice; it remains for me to make a greater one.  A divorce shall set you free.  I myself will obtain that divorce.  No one knows of our marriage—­no one ever shall know.  I will leave you free—­free as the wind that blows—­to go forth and make happy a more honorable and deserving man.  Only, Mollie, no man ever will love you as I love you!” His voice failed.  He turned abruptly away, and stood as if waiting for her to speak.  But she never uttered a word.

He took her silence for a token of her utter scorn and hate.

“Farewell then, Mollie,” he said.  “I go, and I will never molest you more.  The carriage that brought you here will fetch you home again.  But before we part forever, let me say this—­if you ever want a friend, and can so far forgive me the wrong I have done you as to call upon me for help, then, Mollie, I will try to repair my unpardonable offense.”