I need not dwell in detail upon what followed--the
advice of romantic girls, the false counsel of a favorite teacher, the
specious lies and explanations accounting for the necessity for
secrecy, the fervent pleadings, the protestations, the continual
urging, that finally conquered my earlier resolves. I yielded before
the strain, the awakened imagination of a girl of sixteen seeing
nothing in the rose-tinted future except happiness. We were married in
Christ Church, Boston, two of my classmates witnessing the ceremony.
Three months later I awoke fully from dreaming, and faced the darkness."
She leaned against the wall, her face, half hidden, pressed against her
arm. Speaking no word of interruption, Winston clasped her hand and
waited, his gray eyes moist.
"He was a professional gambler, a brute, a cruel, cold-blooded coward,"
the words dropping from her lips as though they burned in utterance.
"Only at the very first did he make any effort to disguise his nature,
or conceal the object of his marriage.
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