'
'She will wait a long time,' said Montesma, 'or fare ill if I go back to
her. Lesbia, his lordship's story of the Octoroon is a fable--an
invention of my Cuban enemies, who hate us old Spaniards with a
poisonous hatred. But this much is true. I am a married man--bound,
fettered by a tie which I abhor. Our Havre marriage would have been
bigamy on my part, a delusion on yours. I could not have taken you to
Cuba. I had planned our life in a fairer, more civilised world. I am
rich enough to have surrounded you with all that makes life worth
living. I would have given you love as true and as deep as ever man gave
to woman. All that would have been wanting would have been the legality
of the tie: and as law never yet made a marriage happy which lacked the
elements of bliss, our lawless union need not have missed happiness.
Lesbia, you said that you would hold by me, come what might. The worst
has come, love; but it leaves me not the less your true lover.'
She looked at him with wild despairing eyes, and then, with a hoarse
strange cry, rushed from the cabin, and up the companion, with a
desperate swiftness which seemed like the flight of a bird.
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