"If she loved you better than me--than me, who would have thought it so small a thing to lay down my life for her happiness, or to stand aloof and keep the secret of my broken heart while I blest her as the cherished wife of another--if you had certain reason to be sure she loved you, you should have asserted your right to claim her love like a man, and should have been prompt to tell me the bitter truth.

I am a man, and would have borne the blow as a man should bear it.
But to sneak into my place behind my back, to steal her away from me, to marry her under a false name--a step that might go far to invalidate the marriage, by the way--and then leave me to piece-out the broken story, syllable by syllable, to suffer all the torture of a prolonged suspense, all the wasted passion of anger and revenge against an imaginary enemy, to find at last that the man I had loved and trusted, honoured and admired beyond all other men throughout the best years of my life, was the man who had struck this secret blow--it was the conduct of a villain and a coward, John Saltram.

I have no words to speak my contempt for so base a betrayal.

And when I remember your pretended sympathy, your friendly counsel--O God! it was the work of a social Judas; nothing was wanted but the kiss." "Yes," the other answered with a faint bitter laugh; "it was very bad.
Once having began, you see, it was but to add one lie to another.
Anything seemed better than to tell you the truth.

I fancied your devotion for Marian would wear itself out much sooner than it did--that you would marry some one else; and then I thought, when you were happy, and had forgotten that old fancy, I would have confessed the truth, and told you it was your friend who was your rival.