She meant to reenter my life, and if I knew her, openly.

Nothing short of bearing my name and being introduced to the world as my wife would satisfy her; and this not only threatened a scandal destructive of my hopes, but involved the breaking of a fresh matrimonial engagement into which I had lately entered with more ardor I fear than judgment.

What was I to do?
Let her have her way--this woman I had not seen in fifteen years,--who if at the age of twenty had seemed to my enthusiastic youth little short of a poet's dream, must be far short of any such perfection now?
I rebelled at the very thought.

Yet to deny her meant the possible facing of consequences such as the strongest may well shrink from.

And the time for choice was short.