"He might have been wounded and given over for dead. The brother might have thought him to be dead."
"I do not think so. I believe it to have been a plot in order that the man might get rid of his wife. But I believed it. Then I went back to St. Louis,—and we were married."
"You thought there was no obstacle but what you might become man and wife legally?"
"I thought she was a widow."
"There was no further delay?"
"Very little. Why should there have been delay?"
"I only ask."
"She had suffered enough, and I had waited long enough."
"She owed you a great deal," said the Doctor.
"It was not a case of owing," said Mr. Peacocke. "At least I think not. I think she had learnt to love me as I had learnt to love her."