'What does that signify?'
'A great deal, I should say. A verdict, no doubt, is human, and therefore may be wrong.'
'So is a marriage human.'
'I beg your pardon, sir;—a marriage is divine.'
'Not if it isn't a marriage. Your marriage in our church wouldn't have been divine if you'd had another wife alive.'
'Papa, I wish you wouldn't.'
'But I shall. I've got to hammer it into his head somehow.'
Mr. Smirkie drew himself up and grinned bravely. But the squire did not care for his frowns. That last backhander at the claret-jug had determined him. 'John Caldigate's marriage with his wife was not in the least interfered with by the verdict.'
'It took away the lady's name from her at once,' said the indignant clergyman.
'That's just what it didn't do,' said the squire, rising from his chair;—'of itself it didn't affect her name at all. And now that it is shown to have been a mistaken verdict, it doesn't affect her position. The long and the short of it is this, that anybody who doesn't like to meet him and his wife as honoured guests in my house had better stay away. Do you hear that, Julia?' Then without waiting for an answer he walked out before them all into the drawing-room and not another word was said that night about the matter. Mr. Smirkie, indeed, did not utter a word on any subject, till at an early hour he wished them all good-night with dignified composure.