Dying might have felt easier to her but for one fact--she loved her
husband--loved him, as she now knew, so passionately, so
engrossingly, that all this misery converged in one single fear--the fear
that she might lose his love. What the world thought of her--what Miss
Gascoigne thought of her, became of little account. All she dreaded
was what Dr. Grey would think. Would he, in his large, tender,
compassionate heart, on hearing her confession, say only "Poor thing!
she could not help it; she was foolish and young," or would he feel she
had deceived him, and cast her off from his trust, his respect, his love
for evermore?
In either case she hesitated not for a moment. Love, bought by a
deception, she knew to be absolutely worthless. Knowing now what
love was, she knew this truth also. Had no discovery been made, she
knew that she must have told all to Dr. Grey. She hated, despised
herself for having already suffered day after day to pass by without
telling him, though she had continually intended to do it. All this was a
just punishment for her cowardice; for she saw now, as she had never
seen before, that every husband, every wife, before entering into the
solemn bond of marriage, has a right to be made acquainted with every
secret of the other's heart, every event of the other's life that such
confidence, then and afterward, should know no reservations, save and
except trusts reposed in both before marriage by other people, which
marriage itself is not justified in considering annulled.
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