CHAPTER LXXXIV — PAUL MONTAGUE’S VINDICATION

It is hoped that the reader need hardly be informed that Hetta Carbury was a very miserable young woman as soon as she decided that duty compelled her to divide herself altogether from Paul Montague.  I think that she was irrational; but to her it seemed that the offence against herself,—­the offence against her own dignity as a woman,—­was too great to be forgiven.  There can be no doubt that it would all have been forgiven with the greatest ease had Paul told the story before it had reached her ears from any other source.  Had he said to her,—­when her heart was softest towards him,—­I once loved another woman, and that woman is here now in London, a trouble to me, persecuting me, and...