"I have not forgotten the permission already granted me, and it is a temptation not easily cast aside. You return North soon?"
I hardly know what prompted me to voice my next question,--Fate, perhaps, weary of being so long mocked,--for I felt small interest in her probable answer.
"Do you expect your husband's release from duty by that time?"
She gave a quick start of surprise, drawing in her breath as though suddenly choked. Then the rich color overspread her face. "My husband?" she ejaculated in voice barely audible, "my husband? Surely you cannot mean Major Brennan?"
"But I certainly do," I said, wondering what might be wrong. "Whom else could I mean?"
"And you thought that?" she asked incredulously. "Why, how could you?"
"How should I have thought otherwise?" I exclaimed, my eyes eagerly searching her downcast face. "Why, Caton told me it was so the night I was before Sheridan; he confirmed it again in conversation less than an hour ago. Colgate, my Lieutenant, who met you in a Baltimore hospital, referred to him the same way. If I have been deceived through all these months, surely everything and everybody conspired to that end,--you bore the same name; you told me plainly you were married; you wore a wedding-ring; you resided while at camp in his quarters; you called each other Frank and Edith. From first to last not one word has been spoken by any one to cause me to doubt that you were his wife."
As I spoke these words hastily, vehemently, the flood of color receded from her face, leaving it pale as marble. Her lips parted, but failed in speech.
"Believe me, Mrs. Brennan, the mistake was a most innocent one. You are not angry?"
"Angry? Oh, no! but it all seems so strange, and it hurts me a little. Surely I have done nothing to forward this unhappy deceit?"
For a moment she bowed her head upon her hands as though she would hide her face from me, conceal the depth of her emotion. Then she looked up once more, smiling through her tears.
"I recall starting to explain all this to you once," she said, striving vainly to appear at ease. "It was when we were interrupted by the sudden coming upon us of Mr. and Mrs. Bungay. Yet I supposed you knew, that you would have learned the facts from others. The last time we were together I told you I did not wholly understand you. It is no wonder, when you thought that of me. But I understand now, and know you must have despised me."