"Don't answer, Coralie, don't say a word. It is for me to speak. I must tell you what you do not know, the reasons that made you wish to keep me out of this house . . . out of this house and out of your very life."
He put his hand on the back of the chair in which she was sitting; and his hand just touched Coralie's hair.
"Coralie, you imagine that it is the shame of your life here that keeps you away from me. You blush at having been that man's wife; and this makes you feel troubled and anxious, as though you yourself had been guilty. But why should you? It was not your fault. Surely you know that I can guess the misery and hatred that must have passed between you and him and the constraint that was brought to bear upon you, by some machination, in order to force your consent to the mar
