He made inquiries from the hotel clerk, the burly commissionaire in the doorway, the servants about the hall. Then he was driven to Scotland Yard and placed the matter in competent hands. Money was no object. The wretches must be brought to justice, and his wife’s person properly guarded.
He returned and told her what he had done, and she said, in reply:
“I am glad for your sake, Harold, but I am very much afraid. My father ought not to have hidden this from me!”
Then she looked up at him, with a mournfulness in her eyes that he never forgot.
“My husband,” she said, “I am going to make a strange request of you—a request which I hope that you will grant, because I know that it is for your good.”
“Well, Theresa? Sweet one, don’t look at me in that way! Your eyes will haunt me forever. Now, what is it you want?”
“Sir Harold, I want you to divorce me! I was reading only recently in some paper that a marriage under any serious misapprehension was practically null and void—that the law would unhesitatingly set it aside. I ask you this with a breaking heart, because I love you as no other can love you—knowing that I am but a clog—a menace to your future happiness!”
“Theresa—Theresa! What has put this madness into your tender, loving heart?”
He took her in his arms and held her to him tightly. He showered upon her words of endearment.
“A little while, Theresa, and all these worries will have melted like mists in the sun. You are too sensitive—too imaginative. Oh, the thought to me is horrible!”