“I am sure you would, dear old fellow; but the time is not far off, and I think it will go hard for any one to give proofs of insanity against me so far; and if my brain has withstood all that I have endured till now, it will probably hold firm to the end.”
“Yes, that will be easily settled. But the babe? Poor Catharine Lacy left no living child, so it is stated in the hospital record.”
“So it is recorded; poor girl! poor wronged wife!”
“She was a lovely creature,” said Louis, “a sweet, gentle girl. How was she driven to such straits, George?”
“It is answered in a sentence,” was the stern reply. “Madame De Marke, who had doubtless suspicions of our private marriage, induced me to go to India, by promises of giving a portion of my inheritance into my own independent possession. She had entire control, even of the income, you know. In his large shipping-interest, my father had left unsettled affairs at Calcutta, which she professed to be very anxious about. I was to remain abroad two years and settle up all his affairs in the East, as the price of my own independence. I had just married Catharine Lacy, who urged me to make this sacrifice, and expressed herself willing to stay with Madame, hard as her life was, until my return.
“If Madame knew of our marriage, her dissimulation was complete, for she gave no sign of such knowledge. I now understand it all. She either had information of the marriage and wished to separate us, or had a suspicion that the poor child was devoted to me, and that by marrying her, one condition of the will might be secured.”
“It is possible,” muttered Louis.
“With this promise, she sent me to the East Indies, where letters might not reach me for months; made that delicate girl a drudge of all work, and at last drove her to desperation, to the Almshouse, and, God pardon her!—I never can,—to death.”
“It was a terrible fate,” said Louis; “but in charity to my mother, let us hope she was not all to blame. There was a time, George, when I can remember her a stylish and attractive woman—never generous or liberal, it is true, but far, far above what she is now. The powerful will of our father kept down her faults, and at his death they broke over all control. It seems to me that, on this one subject of money, she is a monomaniac.”
“You are her son, Louis, and heaven knows I have little wish to wound you by talking of her failings; but you will comprehend how they bear on this case. If I fail to accomplish the conditions of our father’s will, this property goes to your mother during her life, and afterward to you.”