"Merciful heavens!" cried Lord Randolph, agitatedly. "If this be indeed the case, I have been led into a grievous, but not irretrievable, error. Is this lady truly your wife?"
"As truly as a twice-told ceremony can make her," answered the other, with a cold, doubting smile. "Is your lordship indeed in ignorance of this fact? and does the responsibility of your crime alarm you? Fear not—it is not by law I shall seek redress when I demand it. There may be honour—if you know that thing more than by name—but there will be no laws to satisfy."
Lord Randolph was pacing the room, uncertain how to explain himself;—Vellumy looked thunderstruck.
"What!" continued Miles, in the same tone of bitterness; "did you think that was a frail creature, you were only making frailer still? that you were only deceiving a deceiver? giving to the giver his own again? I tell you, no; the creature was to me as the light of heaven—pure, sunny, gladdening all!—a gift of God to cheer me on my pilgrimage! Do you think I could look up to heaven, and bless it for its light, when I had condemned a soul like hers to crime and darkness?—to walk with me onward to the judgment-seat, and there kneel down and condemn me to hell, for the wrong I had done her? I tell you no, my lord; she was my own loved, virtuous wife—once!" And the stern man's voice trembled with emotion.
"And, by heavens, Tremenhere! that still for me, or any thought of mine. Give me your hand: forgive me—I have been led to wrong you deeply; I rejoice in being able once again to call you friend. I respect—I pity you; for some, to me unknown, unhappy circumstances, must have made you condemn a being like that to the shade of a suspicion. Mrs. Tremenhere," he added, approaching her, as Miles drew coldly back from the proffered hand, "forgive me the involuntary pain I have caused you, but plead for me to Tremenhere; he cannot resist you!"
Minnie stared like one idiotic; she was wounded too deeply; her native delicacy was sullied by these cruel suspicions.
"Tell Miles all," she articulated, in a low tone—"I cannot speak to him; tell him all—pray, do!" And her voice was choked with tears.
"You must hear me, Tremenhere!" he cried.
"Must!" laughed the other incredulously. "May I ask is this an impromptu, or a part of a well-arranged whole? I ask a simple question—favour me with a simple reply, my lord. How came Mrs. Tremenhere in this apartment, where I by accident found her? Words will not do—I ask proofs!"
"Will not my pledged and sacred honour suffice?"