Now there was added to the miserable tale, that first marriage, and the rights of David--David, the man who, he was convinced, had captured her imagination.

Hurt vanity played a disproportionate part in this crisis.
The effect on him had been different from what Hylda had anticipated.
She had pictured him stricken and dumfounded by the blow.

It had never occurred to her, it did not now, that he had known the truth; for, of course, to know the truth was to speak, to restore to David his own, to step down into the second and unconsidered place.

After all, to her mind, there was no disgrace.

The late Earl had married secretly, but he had been duly married, and he did not marry again until Mercy Claridge was dead.