"Cousin," he said sternly, "in your own interest I pray you cease this wanton talk. I would have you know that I mean well by you."
He drew from out his pocket the paper that had the seal of His Holiness the Pope attached to it and handed it to Rupert, who with a savage oath took it from him.
"Here, Coz," he said, "is the papal dispensation which good M. Legros gave into my hands when I parted from him at Westminster Hall. The civil law of England will not take long in setting you free. What money can accomplish, that it shall do to expedite your case. My word on it! The lady will not defend it and the nullity of your marriage shall be pronounced ere the first bud appears on the chestnut trees."
"A free man and yet a beggar," murmured Rupert moodily.
"Nay, nay, Cousin, why should you look on me as your enemy? Have I ever acted as such? My mother, alas, is here as a proof that you and yours were enemies to me, but I, not to you, 'pon my honour. I have no need of great riches. The hundred and twenty thousand pounds with which you gambled a year ago are yours, Cousin. Let us call them a loan which you made me, and wherewith Fate hath worked its will for us. I give them to you freely and with all my heart. You are not a beggar, you see, and are free to marry whom you choose. You are still the cousin of, if not the actual Earl of Stowmaries; many a pretty woman with taste and ambition will—an I mistake not—smile on you. Life is full of joys yet for you, Cousin, and Mistress Peyton will relent."
While he thus spoke lightly, almost gaily, the frown of moodiness fled from Rupert Kestyon's brow. He could not help but be gratified at his cousin's generosity, even though his heart no longer turned toward the faithless beauty whose callousness had killed in him all love for her. But there were plenty of pretty women yet in England, thank God, and a man well-born and well-connected could cut a very fine figure in London society these days on one hundred and twenty thousand pounds. In the far-off days in old Virginia he had been quite glad of as many pence.
He was quite manly enough to thank his cousin warmly. But before he went, he told Michael the news that had been all over London for some day before the trial, namely, that beautiful Mistress Peyton had finally decided to bestow her hand and fortune and her heart—on John Ayloffe.
Good Cousin John! Confronted with beggary and the irretrievable loss of that £12,000, he had bethought himself of the only plan whereby the latter goodly sum could, after all, find its way into his own pocket.
The money with the lady was his only chance, and we are told that he took it boldly, even contriving not to make too wry a face when the capricious beauty—realising that Cousin John was her only hope of matrimony now that her name had been so plentifully bespattered with ridicule—decided to bestow her £20,000, her house and her person, on the one man who would accept.
Cousin John became exceedingly fat after his marriage, for he led a life of ease and comfort even though his former merry haunts knew him no more.