How had time spared her! How had griefs left her scathless! It was
an effort to reflect that two years and more had elapsed since he had
read the obituary of Archibald Royston, with scornful amusement to mark
the grotesque lie to the living in the fulsome tribute to the dead.
In some sort, Bayne was prepared for change, for the new identity that
the strange falling out of events betokened. He had never realized her,
he had never divined her character, he would have said. She was now, as
she had always been, an absolute stranger. But this little hand--ah, he
knew it well! How often it had lain in his clasp, and once more every
fibre thrilled at its touch. With all his resolution, he could not
restrain the flush that mounted to his brow, the responsive quiver in his
voice as he murmured her name, the name of Archibald Royston's wife, so
repugnant to his lips. He was in a state of revolt against himself, his
self-betrayal, to realize that she and the two Briscoes could not fail to
mark his confusion, attributing his emotion to whatsoever cause they
would.
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