invitations for the dinner. Geoffrey turned defiantly, book in
hand, to his college friends about him. The British blood was up;
and the British resolution to bet, which successfully defies
common decency and common-law from one end of the country to the
other, was not to be trifled with.
"Come on!" cried Geoffrey. "Back the doctor, one of you!"
Sir Patrick rose in undisguised disgust, and followed the
surgeon. One, Two, and Three, invited to business by their
illustrious friend. shook their thick heads at him knowingly, and
answered with one accord, in one eloquent word--"Gammon!"
"One of _you_ back him!" persisted Geoffrey, appealing to the two
choral gentlemen in the back-ground, with his temper fast rising
to fever heat. The two choral gentlemen compared notes, as usual.
"We weren't born yesterday, Smith?" "Not if we know it, Jones."
"Smith!" said Geoffrey, with a sudden assumption of politeness
ominous of something unpleasant to come.
Smith said "Yes?"--with a smile.
"Jones!"
Jones said "Yes?"--with a reflection of Smith.
"You're a couple of infernal cads--and you haven't got a hundred
pound between you!"
"Come! come!" said Arnold, interfering for the first time. "This
is shameful, Geoffrey!"
"Why the"--(never mind what!)--"won't they any of them take the
bet?"
"If you must be a fool," returned Arnold, a little irritably on
his side, "and if nothing else will keep you quiet, _I'll_ take
the bet."
"An even hundred on the doctor!" cried Geoffrey. "Done with you!"
His highest aspirations were satisfied; his temper was in perfect
order again. He entered the bet in his book; and made his excuses
to Smith and Jones in the heartiest way. "No offense, old chaps!
Shake hands!" The two choral gentlemen were enchanted with him.
"The English aristocracy--eh, Smith?" "Blood and breeding--ah,
Jones!"
As soon as he had spoken, Arnold's conscience reproached him: not
for betting (who is ashamed of _that_ form of gambling in
England?) but for "backing the doctor." With the best intention
toward his friend, he was speculating on the failure of his
friend's health. He anxiously assured Geoffrey that no man in the
room could be more heartily persuaded that the surgeon was wrong
than himself. "I don't cry off from the bet," he said. "But, my
dear fellow, pray understand that I only take it to please
_you._"
"Bother all that!" answered Geoffrey, with the steady eye to
business, which was one of the choicest virtues in his character.
"A bet's a bet--and hang your sentiment!" He drew Arnold by the
arm out of ear-shot of the others. "I say!" he asked, anxiously.
"Do you think I've set the old fogy's back up?"
"Do you mean Sir Patrick?"
Geoffrey nodded, and went on.
"I haven't put that little matter to him yet--about marrying in
Scotland, you know. Suppose he cuts up rough with me if I try him
now?" His eye wandered cunningly, as he put the question, to the
farther end of the room. The surgeon was looking over a
port-folio of prints. The ladies were still at work on their
notes of invitation. Sir Patrick was alone at the book-shelves
immersed in a volume which he had just taken down.
"Make an apology," suggested Arnold. "Sir Patrick may be a little
irritable and bitter; but he's a just man and a kind man. Say you
were not guilty of any intentional disrespect toward him--and you
will say enough."
"All right!"
Sir Patrick, deep in an old Venetian edition of The Decameron,
found himself suddenly recalled from medieval Italy to modern
England, by no less a person than Geoffrey Delamayn.
"What do you want?" he asked, coldly.
"I want to make an apology," said Geoffrey. "Let by-gones be
by-gones--and that sort of thing. I wasn't guilty of any
intentional disrespect toward you. Forgive and forget. Not half a
bad motto, Sir--eh?"
It was clumsily expressed--but still it was an apology. Not even
Geoffrey could appeal to Sir Patrick's courtesy and Sir Patrick's
consideration in vain.
"Not a word more, Mr. Delamayn!" said the polite old man. "Accept
my excuses for any thing which I may have said too sharply, on my
side; and let us by all means forget the rest."
Having met the advance made to him, in those terms, he paused,
expecting Geoffrey to leave him free to return to the Decameron.
To his unutterable astonishment, Geoffrey suddenly stooped over
him, and whispered in his ear, "I want a word in private with
you."
Sir Patrick started back, as if Geoffrey had tried to bite him.
"I beg your pardon, Mr. Delamayn--what did you say?"
"Could you give me a word in private?"
Sir Patrick put back the Decameron; and bowed in freezing
silence. The confidence of the Honorable Geoffrey Delamayn was
the last confidence in the world into which he desired to be
drawn. "This is the secret of the apology!" he thought. "What can
he possibly want with Me?"
"It's about a friend of mine," pursued Geoffrey; leading the way
toward one of the windows. "He's in a scrape, my friend is. And I
want to ask your advice. It's strictly private, you know." There
he came to a full stop--and looked to see what impression he had
produced, so far.
Sir Patrick declined, either by word or g esture, to exhibit the
slightest anxiety to hear a word more.
"Would you mind taking a turn in the garden?" asked Geoffrey.
Sir Patrick pointed to his lame foot. "I have had my allowance of
walking this morning," he said. "Let my infirmity excuse me."
Geoffrey looked about him for a substitute for the garden, and
led the way back again toward one of the convenient curtained
recesses opening out of the inner wall of the library. "We shall
be private enough here," he said.
Sir Patrick made a final effort to escape the proposed
conference--an undisguised effort, this time
"Pray forgive me, Mr. Delamayn. Are you quite sure that you apply
to the right person, in applying to _me?_"
"You're a Scotch lawyer, ain't you?"
"Certainly."
"And you understand about Scotch marriages--eh?"
Sir Patrick's manner suddenly altered.
"Is _that_ the subject you wish to consult me on?" he asked.
"It's not me. It's my friend."
"Your friend, then?"
"Yes. It's a scrape with a woman. Here in Scotland. My friend
don't know whether he's married to her or not."
"I am at your service, Mr. Delamayn."
To Geoffrey's relief--by no means unmixed with surprise--Sir
Patrick not only showed no further reluctance to be consulted by
him, but actually advanced to meet his wishes, by leading the way
to the recess that was nearest to them. The quick brain of the
old lawyer had put Geoffrey's application to him for assistance,
and Blanche's application to him for assistance, together; and
had built its own theory on the basis thus obtained. "Do I se
e a
connection between the present position of Blanche's governess,
and the present position of Mr. Delamayn's 'friend?' " thought
Sir Patrick. "Stranger extremes than _that_ have met me in my
experience. Something may come out of this."
The two strangely-assorted companions seated themselves, one on
each side of a little table in the recess. Arnold and the other
guests had idled out again on to the lawn. The surgeon with his
prints, and the ladies with their invitations, were safely
absorbed in a distant part of the library. The conference between
the two men, so trifling in appearance, so terrible in its
destined influence, not over Anne's future only, but over the
future of Arnold and Blanche, was, to all practical purposes, a
conference with closed doors.
"Now," said Sir Patrick, "what is the question?"
"The question," said Geoffrey, "is whether my friend is married
to her or not?"
"Did he mean to marry her?"
"No."
"He being a single man, and she being a single woman, at the
time? And both in Scotland?"
"Yes."
"Very well. Now tell me the circumstances."
Geoffrey hesitated. The art of stating circumstances implies the
cultivation of a very rare gift--the gift of arranging ideas. No
one was better acquainted with this truth than Sir Patrick. He
was purposely puzzling Geoffrey at starting, under the firm
conviction that his client had something to conceal from him. The
one process that could be depended on for extracting the truth,
under those circumstances, was the process of interrogation. If
Geoffrey was submitted to it, at the outset, his cunning might
take the alarm. Sir Patrick's object was to make the man himself
invite interrogation. Geoffrey invited it forthwith, by
attempting to state the circumstances, and by involving them in
the usual confusion. Sir Patrick waited until he had thoroughly
lost the thread of his narrative--and then played for the winning
trick.
"Would it be easier to you if I asked a few questions?" he
inquired, innocently.
"Much easier."
"I am quite at your service. Suppose we clear the ground to begin
with? Are you at liberty to mention names?"
"No."
"Places?"
"No."
"Dates?"
"Do you want me to be particular?"
"Be as particular as you can."
"Will it do, if I say the present year?"
"Yes. Were your friend and the lady--at some time in the present
year--traveling together in Scotland?"
"No."
"Living together in Scotland?"
"No."
"What _were_ they doing together in Scotland?"
"Well--they were meeting each other at an inn."
"Oh? They were meeting each other at an inn. Which was first at
the rendezvous?"
"The woman was first. Stop a bit! We are getting to it now." He
produced from his pocket the written memorandum of Arnold's
proceedings at Craig Fernie, which he had taken down from
Arnold's own lips. "I've got a bit of note here," he went on.
"Perhaps you'd like to have a look at it?"
Sir Patrick took the note--read it rapidly through to
himself--then re-read it, sentence by sentence, to Geoffrey;
using it as a text to speak from, in making further inquiries.
" 'He asked for her by the name of his wife, at the door,' " read
Sir Patrick. "Meaning, I presume, the door of the inn? Had the
lady previously given herself out as a married woman to the
people of the inn?"
"Yes."
"How long had she been at the inn before the gentleman joined
her?"
"Only an hour or so."
"Did she give a name?"
"I can't be quite sure--I should say not."
"Did the gentleman give a name?"
"No. I'm certain _he_ didn't."
Sir Patrick returned to the memorandum.
" 'He said at dinner, before the landlady and the waiter, I take
these rooms for my wife. He made _her_ say he was her husband, at
the same time.' Was that done jocosely, Mr. Delamayn--either by
the lady or the gentleman?"
"No. It was done in downright earnest."
"You mean it was done to look like earnest, and so to deceive the
landlady and the waiter?"
"Yes."
Sir Patrick returned to the memorandum.
" 'After that, he stopped all night.' Stopped in the rooms he had
taken for himself and his wife?"
"Yes."
"And what happened the next day?"
"He went away. Wait a bit! Said he had business for an excuse."
"That is to say, he kept up the deception with the people of the
inn? and left the lady behind him, in the character of his wife?"
"That's it."
"Did he go back to the inn?"
"No."
"How long did the lady stay there, after he had gone?"
"She staid--well, she staid a few days."
"And your friend has not seen her since?"
"No."
"Are your friend and the lady English or Scotch?"
"Both English."
"At the time when they met at the inn, had they either of them
arrived in Scotland, from the place in which they were previously
living, within a period of less than twenty-one days?"
Geoffrey hesitated. There could be no difficulty in answering for
Anne. Lady Lundie and her domestic circle had occupied Windygates
for a much longer period than three weeks before the date of the
lawn-party. The question, as it affected Arnold, was the only
question that required reflection. After searching his memory for
details of the conversation which had taken place between them,
when he and Arnold had met at the lawn-party, Geoffrey recalled a
certain reference on the part of his friend to a performance at
the Edinburgh theatre, which at once decided the question of
time. Arnold had been necessarily detained in Edinburgh, before
his arrival at Windygates, by legal business connected with his
inheritance; and he, like Anne, had certainly been in Scotland,
before they met at Craig Fernie, for a longer period than a
period of three weeks He accordingly informed Sir Patrick that
the lady and gentleman had been in Scotland for more than
twenty-one days--and then added a question on his own behalf:
"Don't let me hurry you, Sir--but, shall you soon have done?"
"I shall have done, after two more questions," answered Sir
Patrick. "Am I to understand that the lady claims, on the
strength of the circumstances which you have mentioned to me, to
be your friend's wife?"
Geoffrey made an affirmative reply. The readiest means of
obtaining Sir Patrick's opinion was, in this case, to answer,
Yes. In other words, to represent Anne (in the character of "the
lady") as claiming to be married to Arnold (in the character of
"his friend").
Having made this concession to circumstances, he was, at the same
time, quite cunning enough to see that it was of vital importance
to the purpose which he had in view, to confine himself strict
ly
to this one perversion of the truth. There could be plainly no
depending on the lawyer's opinion, unless that opinion was given
on the facts exactly a s they had occurred at the inn. To the
facts he had, thus far, carefully adhered; and to the facts (with
the one inevitable departure from them which had been just forced
on him) he determined to adhere to the end.
"Did no letters pass between the lady and gentleman?" pursued Sir
Patrick.
"None that I know of," answered Geoffrey, steadily returning to
the truth.
"I have done, Mr. Delamayn."
"Well? and what's your opinion?"
"Before I give my opinion I am bound to preface it by a personal
statement which you are not to take, if you please, as a
statement of the law. You ask me to decide--on the facts with
which you have supplied me--whether your friend is, according to
the law of Scotland, married or not?"
Geoffrey nodded. "That's it!" he said, eagerly.
"My experience, Mr. Delamayn, is that any single man, in
Scotland, may marry any single woman, at any time, and under any
circumstances. In short, after thirty years' practice as a
lawyer, I don't know what is _not_ a marriage in Scotland."
"In plain English," said Geoffrey, "you mean she's his wife?"
In spite of his cunning; in spite of his self-command, his eyes
brightened as he said those words. And the tone in which he
spoke--though too carefully guarded to be a tone of triumph--was,
to a fine ear, unmistakably a tone of relief.
Neither the look nor the tone was lost on Sir Patrick.
His first suspicion, when he sat down to the conference, had been
the obvious suspicion that, in speaking of "his friend," Geoffrey
was speaking of himself. But, like all lawyers, he habitually
distrusted first impressions, his own included. His object, thus
far, had been to solve the problem of Geoffrey's true position
and Geoffrey's real motive. He had set the snare accordingly, and
had caught his bird.
It was now plain to his mind--first, that this man who was
consulting him, was, in all probability, really speaking of the
case of another person: secondly, that he had an interest (of
what nature it was impossible yet to say) in satisfying his own
mind that "his friend" was, by the law of Scotland, indisputably
a married man. Having penetrated to that extent the secret which
Geoffrey was concealing from him, he abandoned the hope of making
any further advance at that present sitting. The next question to
clear up in the investigation, was the question of who the
anonymous "lady" might be. And the next discovery to make was,
whether "the lady" could, or could not, be identified with Anne
Silvester. Pending the inevitable delay in reaching that result,
the straight course was (in Sir Patrick's present state of
uncertainty) the only course to follow in laying down the law. He
at once took the question of the marriage in hand--with no
concealment whatever, as to the legal bearings of it, from the
client who was consulting him.
"Don't rush to conclusions, Mr. Delamayn," he said. "I have only
told you what my general experience is thus far. My professional
opinion on the special case of your friend has not been given
yet."
Geoffrey's face clouded again. Sir Patrick carefully noted the
new change in it.
"The law of Scotland," he went on, "so far as it relates to
Irregular Marriages, is an outrage on common decency and
common-sense. If you think my language in thus describing it too
strong--I can refer you to the language of a judicial authority.
Lord Deas delivered a recent judgment of marriage in Scotland,
from the bench, in these words: 'Consent makes marriage. No form