"
"It is a hopeless case," observed Lord Arleigh, sadly. "I am quite sure
that even if you knew all about it, you would not see any comfort for
me. For my wife's sake I hesitate to tell you, not for my own."
"Your wife's secret will be as safe with me as with yourself," said the
earl.
"I never thought that it would pass my lips, but I do trust you,"
declared Lord Arleigh; "and if you can see any way to help me, I shall
thank Heaven for the first day I met you. You must hold my wife
blameless, Lord Mountdean," he went on. "She never spoke untruthfully,
she never deceived me; but on our wedding-day I discovered that her
father was a convict--a man of the lowest criminal type."
Lord Mountdean looked as he felt, shocked.
"But how," he asked, eagerly, "could you be so deceived?"
"That I can never tell you; it was an act of fiendish revenge--cruel,
ruthless, treacherous. I cannot reveal the perpetrator. My wife did not
deceive me, did not even know that I had been deceived; she thought,
poor child, that I was acquainted with the whole of her father's story,
but I was not. And now, Lord Mountdean, tell me, do you think I did
wrong?"
He raised his care-worn, haggard face as he asked the question and the
earl was disturbed at sight of the terrible pain in it.
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