The Secret Bride of Fifteen Years

The other day a rather pretty woman came up to me, called me by name and asked me if I did not remember her. I did not, and thinking discretion the better part of valor, told her the truth. She then said she used to be Nellie Neville, but was now Mrs. Sanford. Don’t you remember her story? She was going to school at the convent and went home for the Christmas holidays; then she was about 15 years old. The years went on. School was left, but many of her friends kept up their acquaintance with her. Bright, pretty to look upon, and with that wonderful something that attracts men, she refused any number of eligible offers. Everybody wondered why, for she was ambitious, and some of them would have given her exactly what she must have wished—plenty of money, a good social position, and all that that implies. She stayed part of the summer where I was, and we used to wonder at the dreadful blue spells she would have, when she would cry for hours at a time. There was a delicious hint of some terrible secret; but nobody knew quite well what it was, or indeed even guessed at it. Then there came the man who won her heart and to him she told her story—it was this: While she was at home that Christmas week she had been induced by a boy sweetheart to go with him and get married. She was his bride and never his wife. When she returned to school he was sent abroad by his father and remained in a German university for some years. He did not know where the girl was, or anything about her, and when he came back and found her a woman he came to see her, asking the suggestion that she should let the marriage be announced to the world. This she positively declined to do. She had grown to dislike him, knew that he was indifferent to her, and only begged of him that he would keep the matter a secret, as she did not believe she would ever care to marry. When her lover heard this he was, of course, more than surprised, but as she had no religious scruples on the question of divorce, he immediately had lawyers at work to get her one, which, as the husband did not contest it, was easily obtained. Then, of course, she married her hero, and is, I believe, a very happy wife. Just think, Dorothy, of a woman being a bride for fifteen years and never telling of it! This knocks into bits all the ridiculous nonsense about women not being able to keep secrets. They can keep their own, my dear, it is only the keeping of other people’s that they find troublesome.