The Story Continued by Marian Halcombe

temptation that has fallen in some women’s way, and made them worse, had fallen in mine at that moment⁠—Thank God! my face betrayed nothing that his wife could read. The gentle, innocent, affectionate creature thought I was frightened for her and sorry for her, and thought no more. “Don’t think too seriously of it, Marian,” she said simply, as she pulled her sleeve down again. “It doesn’t hurt me now.” “I will try to think quietly of it, my love, for your sake.⁠—Well! well! And you told him all that Anne Catherick had said to you⁠—all that you told me?” “Yes, all. He insisted on it⁠—I was alone with him⁠—I could conceal nothing.” “Did he say anything when you had done?” “He looked at me, and laughed to himself in a mocking, bitter way. ‘I mean to have the rest out of you,’ he said, ‘do you hear?⁠—the rest.’ I declared to him solemnly that I had told him everything I knew. ‘Not you,’ he answered, ‘you know more than you choose to tell. Won’t you tell it? You shall! I’ll wring it out of you at home if I can’t wring it out of you here.’ He led me away by a strange path through the plantation⁠—a path where there was no hope of our meeting you ⁠—and he spoke no more till we came within sight of the house. Then he stopped again, and said, ‘Will you take a second chance, if I give it to you? Will you think better of it, and tell me the rest?’ I could only repeat the same words I had spoken before. He cursed my obstinacy, and went on, and took me with him to the house. ‘You