The Venetians by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

Vansittart's heart was lighter than it had been for a long time, the day he left Charles Street for Waterloo on his way to Haslemere. He longed to see Eve Marchant, with all a lover's longing, and he told himself that he had tested his own heart severely enough by an absence of three months, and that he had now only to discover whether the lady's heart was in any way responsive to his own. He knew now that his love for Eve Marchant was no passing fancy, no fever of the moment; and he also told himself that if he could be fairly assured of her worthiness to be his wife, he would lose no time in offering himself as her husband. Of her father's character, whatever it might be, of her present surroundings, however sordid and shabby, he would take no heed. He would ask only if she were pure and true and frank and honest enough for an honest man's wife. Convinced on that point, he would ask no more.

An honest man's wife? Was he an honest man? Was he going to give her truth in exchange for truth? Was there nothing that he must needs hold back; no secret in his past life that he must keep till his life's end? Yes, there was one secret. He was not going to tell her of his Venetian adventure. It would grieve her woman's heart too much to know that the man she loved had to bear the burden of another man's blood. Nay, more, with a woman's want of logic she might deem that impulse of a moment murder, and might refuse to give herself to a man who bore that stain upon his past.