"We have had enough of irregularity," she said. sternly. "I, for
one, object to more."
Sir Patrick waited patiently for Mr. Moy's reply. The Scotch
lawyer and the English lawyer looked at each other--and
understood each other. Mr. Moy answered for both.
"We don't presume to restrain you, Sir Patrick, by other limits
than those which, as a gentleman, you impose on yourself.
Subject," added the cautious Scotchman, "to the right of
objection which we have already reserved."
"Do you object to my speaking to your client?" asked Sir Patrick.
"To Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn?"
"Yes."
All eyes turned on Geoffrey. He was sitting half asleep, as it
seemed--with his heavy hands hanging listlessly over his knees,
and his chin resting on the hooked handle of his stick.
Looking toward Anne, when Sir Patrick pronounced Geoffrey's name,
Mr. Moy saw a change in her. She withdrew her hands from her
face, and turned suddenly toward her legal adviser. Was she in
the secret of the carefully concealed object at which his
opponent had been aiming from the first? Mr. Moy decided to put
that doubt to the test. He invited Sir Patrick, by a gesture, to
proceed. Sir Patrick addressed himself to Geoffrey.
"You are seriously interested in this inquiry," he said; "and you
have taken no part in it yet. Take a part in it now. Look at this
lady."
Geoffrey never moved.
"I've seen enough of her already," he said, brutally.
"You may well be ashamed to look at her," said Sir Patrick,
quietly. "But you might have acknowledged it in fitter words.
Carry your memory back to the fourteenth of August. Do you deny
that you promised to many Miss Silvester privately at the Craig
Fernie inn?"
"I object to that question," said Mr. Moy. "My client is under no
sort of obligation to answer it."
Geoffrey's rising temper--ready to resent any thing--resented his
adviser's interference. "I shall answer if I like," he retorted,
insolently. He looked up for a moment at Sir Patrick, without
moving his chin from the hook of his stick. Then he looked down
again. "I do deny it," he said.
"You deny that you have promised to marry Miss Silvester?"
"Yes."
"I asked you just now to look at her--"
"And I told you I had seen enough of her already."
"Look at _me._ In my presence, and in the presence of the other
persons here, do you deny that you owe this lady, by your own
solemn engagement, the reparation of marriage?"
He suddenly lifted his head. His eyes, after resting for an
instant only on Sir Patrick, turned, little by little; and,
brightening slowly, fixed themselves with a hideous, tigerish
glare on Anne's face. "I know what I owe her," he said.
The devouring hatred of his look was matched by the ferocious
vindictiveness of his tone, as he spoke those words. It was
horrible to see him; it was horrible to hear him. Mr. Moy said to
him, in a whisper, "Control yourself, or I will throw up your
case."
Without answering--without even listening--he lifted one of his
hands, and looked at it vacantly. He whispered something to
himself; and counted out what he was whispering slowly; in
divisions of his own, on three of his fingers in succession. He
fixed his eyes again on Anne with the same devouring hatred in
their look, and spoke (this time directly addressing himself to
her) with the same ferocious vindictiveness in his tone. "But for
you, I should be married to Mrs. Glenarm. But for you, I should
be friends with my father. But for you, I should have won the
race. I know what I owe you." His loosely hanging hands
stealthily clenched themselves. His head sank again on his broad
breast. He said no more.
Not a soul moved--not a word was spoken. The same common horror
held them all speechless. Anne's eyes turned once more on
Blanche. Anne's courage upheld her, even at that moment.
Sir Patrick rose. The strong emotion which he had suppressed thus
far, showed itself plainly in his face--uttered itself plainly in
his voice.
"Come into the next room," he said to Anne. "I must speak to you
instantly!"
Without noticing the astonishment that he caused; without paying
the smallest attention to the remonstrances addressed to him by
his sister-in-law and by the Scotch lawyer, he took Anne by the
arm, opened the folding-doors at one end of the room--entered the
room beyond with her--and closed the doors again.
Lady Lundie appealed to her legal adviser. Blanche rose--advanced
a few steps--and stood in breathless suspense, looking at the
folding-doors. Arnold advanced a step, to speak to his wife. The
captain approached Mr. Moy.
"What does this mean?" he asked.
Mr. Moy answered, in strong agitation on his side.
"It means that I have not been properly instructed. Sir Patrick
Lundie has some evidence in his possession that seriously
compromises Mr. Delamayn's case. He has shrunk from producing it
hitherto--he finds himself forced to produce it now. How is it,"
asked the lawyer, turning sternly on his client, "that you have
left me in the dark?"
"I know nothing about it," answered Geoffrey, without lifting his
head.
Lady Lundie signed to Blanche to stand aside, and advanced toward
the folding-doors. Mr. Moy stopped her.
"I advise your ladyship to be patient. Interference is useless
there."
"Am I not to interfere, Sir, in my own house?"
"Unless I am entirely mistaken, madam, the end of the proceedings
in your house is at hand. You will damage your own interests by
interfering. Let us know what we are about at last. Let the end
come."
Lady Lundie yielded, and returned to her place. They all waited
in silence for the opening of the doors.
Sir Patrick Lundie and Anne Silvester were alone in the room.
He took from the breast-pocket of his coat the sheet of
note-paper which contained Anne's letter, and Geoffrey's reply.
His hand trembled as he held it; his voice faltered as he spoke.
"I have done all that can be done," he said. "I have left nothing
untried, to prevent the necessity of producing this."
"I feel your kindness gratefully, Sir Patrick. You must produce
it now."
The woman's calmness presented a strange and touching contrast to
the man's emotion. There was no shrinking in her face, there was
no unsteadiness in her voice as she answered him. He took her
hand. Twice he attempted to speak; and twice his own agitation
overpowered him. He offered the letter to her i n silence.
In silence, on her side, she put the letter away from her,
wondering what he meant.
"Take it back," he said. "I can't produce it! I daren't produce
it! After what my own eyes have seen, after what my own ears have
heard, in the next room--as God is my witness, I daren't ask you
to declare yourself Geoffrey Delamayn's wife!"
&nb
sp; She answered him in one word.
"Blanche!"
He shook his head impatiently. "Not even in Blanche's interests!
Not even for Blanche's sake! If there is any risk, it is a risk I
am ready to run. I hold to my own opinion. I believe my own view
to be right. Let it come to an appeal to the law! I will fight
the case, and win it."
"Are you _sure_ of winning it, Sir Patrick?"
Instead of replying, he pressed the letter on her. "Destroy it,"
he whispered. "And rely on my silence."
She took the letter from him.
"Destroy it," he repeated. "They may open the doors. They may
come in at any moment, and see it in your hand."
"I have something to ask you, Sir Patrick, before I destroy it.
Blanche refuses to go back to her husband, unless she returns
with the certain assurance of being really his wife. If I produce
this letter, she may go back to him to-day. If I declare myself
Geoffrey Delamayn's wife, I clear Arnold Brinkworth, at once and
forever of all suspicion of being married to me. Can you as
certainly and effectually clear him in any other way? Answer me
that, as a man of honor speaking to a woman who implicitly trusts
him!"
She looked him full in the face. His eyes dropped before hers--he
made no reply.
"I am answered," she said.
With those words, she passed him, and laid her hand on the door.
He checked her. The tears rose in his eyes as he drew her gently
back into the room.
"Why should we wait?" she asked.
"Wait," he answered, "as a favor to _me._"
She seated herself calmly in the nearest chair, and rested her
head on her hand, thinking.
He bent over her, and roused her, impatiently, almost angrily.
The steady resolution in her face was terrible to him, when he
thought of the man in the next room.
"Take time to consider," he pleaded. "Don't be led away by your
own impulse. Don't act under a false excitement. Nothing binds
you to this dreadful sacrifice of yourself."
"Excitement! Sacrifice!" She smiled sadly as she repeated the
words. "Do you know, Sir Patrick, what I was thinking of a moment
since? Only of old times, when I was a little girl. I saw the sad
side of life sooner than most children see it. My mother was
cruelly deserted. The hard marriage laws of this country were
harder on her than on me. She died broken-hearted. But one friend
comforted her at the last moment, and promised to be a mother to
her child. I can't remember one unhappy day in all the after-time
when I lived with that faithful woman and her little
daughter--till the day that parted us. She went away with her
husband; and I and the little daughter were left behind. She said
her last words to me. Her heart was sinking under the dread of
coming death. 'I promised your mother that you should be like my
own child to me, and it quieted her mind. Quiet _my_ mind, Anne,
before I go. Whatever happens in years to come--promise me to be
always what you are now, a sister to Blanche.' Where is the false
excitement, Sir Patrick, in old remembrances like these? And how
can there be a sacrifice in any thing that I do for Blanche?"
She rose, and offered him her hand. Sir Patrick lifted it to his
lips in silence.
"Come!" she said. "For both our sakes, let us not prolong this."
He turned aside his head. It was no moment to let her see that
she had completely unmanned him. She waited for him, with her
hand on the lock. He rallied his courage--he forced himself to
face the horror of the situation calmly. She opened the door, and
led the way back into the other room.
Not a word was spoken by any of the persons present, as the two
returned to their places. The noise of a carriage passing in the
street was painfully audible. The chance banging of a door in the
lower regions of the house made every one start.
Anne's sweet voice broke the dreary silence.
"Must I speak for myself, Sir Patrick? Or will you (I ask it as a
last and greatest favor) speak for me?"
"You insist on appealing to the letter in your hand?"
"I am resolved to appeal to it."
"Will nothing induce you to defer the close of this inquiry--so
far as you are concerned--for four-and-twenty hours?"
"Either you or I, Sir Patrick, must say what is to be said, and
do what is to be done, before we leave this room."
"Give me the letter."
She gave it to him. Mr. Moy whispered to his client, "Do you know
what that is?" Geoffrey shook his head. "Do you really remember
nothing about it?" Geoffrey answered in one surly word,
"Nothing!"
Sir Patrick addressed himself to the assembled company.
"I have to ask your pardon," he said, "for abruptly leaving the
room, and for obliging Miss Silvester to leave it with me. Every
body present, except that man" (he pointed to Geoffrey), "will, I
believe, understand and forgive me, now that I am forced to make
my conduct the subject of the plainest and the fullest
explanation. I shall address that explanation, for reasons which
will presently appear, to my niece."
Blanche started. "To me!" she exclaimed.
"To you," Sir Patrick answered.
Blanche turned toward Arnold, daunted by a vague sense of
something serious to come. The letter that she had received from
her husband on her departure from Ham Farm had necessarily
alluded to relations between Geoffrey and Anne, of which Blanche
had been previously ignorant. Was any reference coming to those
relations? Was there something yet to be disclosed which Arnold's
letter had not prepared her to hear?
Sir Patrick resumed.
"A short time since," he said to Blanche, "I proposed to you to
return to your husband's protection--and to leave the termination
of this matter in my hands. You have refused to go back to him
until you are first certainly assured that you are his wife.
Thanks to a sacrifice to your interests and your happiness, on
Miss Silvester's part--which I tell you frankly I have done my
utmost to prevent--I am in a position to prove positively that
Arnold Brinkworth was a single man when he married you from my
house in Kent."
Mr. Moy's experience forewarned him of what was coming. He
pointed to the letter in Sir Patrick's hand.
"Do you claim on a promise of marriage?" he asked.
Sir Patrick rejoined by putting a question on his side.
"Do you remember the famous decision at Doctors' Commons, which
established the marriage of Captain Dalrymple and Miss Gordon?"
Mr. Moy was answered. "I understand you, Sir Patrick," he said.
After a moment's pause, he addressed his next words to Anne. "And
from the bottom of my heart, madam, I respect _you._"
It was said with a fervent sincerity of tone which wrought the
interest of the other persons, who were still waiting for
enlightenment, to the highest pitch. Lady Lundie and Captain
Newenden whispered to each other anxiously. Arnold turned pale.
&nb
sp; Blanche burst into tears.
Sir Patrick turned once more to his niece.
"Some little time since," he said, "I had occasion to speak to
you of the scandalous uncertainty of the marriage laws of
Scotland. But for that uncertainty (entirely without parallel in
any other civilized country in Europe), Arnold Brinkworth would
never have occupied the position in which he stands here
to-day--and these proceedings would never have taken place. Bear
that fact in mind. It is not only answerable for the mischief
that has been already done, but for the far more serious evil
which is still to come."
Mr. Moy took a note. Sir Patrick went on.
"Loose and reckless as the Scotch law is, there happens, however,
to be one case in which the action of it has been confirmed and
settled by the English Courts. A written promise of marriage
exchanged between a man and woman, in Scotland, marries that man
and woman by Scotch law. An English Court of Justice (sitting in
judgment on the ease I have just mentioned to Mr. Moy) has
pronounced that law to be good--and the decision has since been
confirmed by the supreme authority of the Hous e of Lords. Where
the persons therefore--living in Scotland at the time--have
promised each other marriage in writing, there is now no longer
any doubt they are certainly, and lawfully, Man and Wife." He
turned from his niece, and appealed to Mr. Moy." Am I right?"
"Quite right, Sir Patrick, as to the facts. I own, however, that
your commentary on them surprises me. I have the highest opinion
of our Scottish marriage law. A man who has betrayed a woman
under a promise of marriage is forced by that law (in the
interests of public morality) to acknowledge her as his wife."
"The persons here present, Mr. Moy, are now about to see the
moral merit of the Scotch law of marriage (as approved by
England) practically in operation before their own eyes. They
will judge for themselves of the morality (Scotch or English)
which first forces a deserted woman back on the villain who has
betrayed her, and then virtuously leaves her to bear the
consequences."
With that answer, he turned to Anne, and showed her the letter,
open in his hand.
"For the last time," he said, "do you insist on my appealing to
this?"
She rose, and bowed her head gravely.
"It is my distressing duty," said Sir Patrick, "to declare, in
this lady's name, and on the faith of written promises of
marriage exchanged between the parties, then residing in
Scotland, that she claims to be now--and to have been on the
afternoon of the fourteenth of August last--Mr. Geoffrey
Delamayn's wedded wife."
A cry of horror from Blanche, a low murmur of dismay from the
rest, followed the utterance of those words.
There was a pause of an instant.
Then Geoffrey rose slowly to his feet, and fixed his eyes on the
wife who had claimed him.
The spectators of the terrible scene turned with one accord
toward the sacrificed woman. The look which Geoffrey had cast on
her--the words which Geoffrey had spoken to her--were present to
all their minds. She stood, waiting by Sir Patrick's side--her
soft gray eyes resting sadly and tenderly on Blanche's face. To
see that matchless courage and resignation was to doubt the
reality of what had happened. They were forced to look back at
the man to possess their minds with the truth.
The triumph of law and morality over him was complete. He never
uttered a word. His furious temper was perfectly and fearfully
calm. With the promise of merciless vengeance written in the
Devil s writing on his Devil-possessed face, he kept his eyes
fixed on the hated woman whom he had ruined--on the hated woman
who was fastened to him as his wife.