"Love is blind not only to faults but to all the world. We were discovered and he was blamed. The great name of the institution might be compromised--its business suffer. He resigned.
"Then came the terrible misstep; he asked me to go with him and I consented. We should have gone home; he was afraid of the legal effects of marrying a minor, and so we went the other way. Not stopping in New York we turned northward, away from the revengeful south; from police surveillance, and somewhere we were married. I heard them call us man and wife, and then I sank again into my dream.
"It does not seem possible that I could not have known the name of the place, but I was no more than a child looking from a car window and taken out for meals here and there. I had but one thought--my husband.
"We went to Canada, then abroad. Gaspard had saved considerable money; his home was in Silesia and thither we went; and that long journey was the happiest honeymoon a woman could know."
"I spent mine in Europe wandering from point to point. I understand," said Mrs. Montjoy, gently.
"Oh, you do understand! We reached the home and then my troubles began. My husband, the restraints of his professional engagement thrown off, fell a victim to dissipation again. He had left his country to break up old associations and this habit.
"His people were high-class but poor. He was Count Levigne. Their pride was boundless. They disliked me from the beginning. I had frustrated the plans of the family, whose redemption was to come from Gaspard. Innocent though I was, and soon demanding the tenderness, the love, the gentleness which almost every woman receives under like circumstances, I received only coldness and petty persecution.
"Soon came want; not the want of mere food, but of clothing and minor comforts. And Gaspard had changed--he who should have defended me left me to defend myself. One night came the end. He reproached me--he was intoxicated--with having ruined his life and his prospects." The speaker paused. With this scene had come an emotion she could with difficulty control; but, calm at last, she continued with dignity:
"The daughter of Gen. Albert Evan could not stand that. I sold my diamonds, my mother's diamonds, and came away. I had resolved to come back and work for a living in my own land until peace could be made with father. At that time I did not know the trouble. I found out, though.