Page:Fletcher--Where Highways Cross.djvu/124

 "It's hard to begin what I have to tell," she said, "but it will be harder to go on with it, because it brings back things that I've tried to forget. I told you, Mr. Hepworth, that my name was Elisabeth Verrell. That was true—my husband was Walter Verrell. When I first knew him he was a clerk in one of the Bristol banks, and I was learning the dressmaking business in Bristol. I don't remember now how it was that we first met, but I have no relations of my own living, and I had had a lonely life as a girl, and when I got to know Walter it was nice to have a friend. We used to spend our spare time and our holidays together, and at last he asked me to be his wife, and I said yes without a minute's hesitation, because I loved him."

She paused for a moment, and Hepworth saw that tears had come into her eyes. He turned his head away. In his own heart there was a strange feeling. To hear her speak in this way of another man seemed to