“I do not remember what either said—it was a repetition of what had passed before. But I do remember that when I said I would compel her to obey me, as my wife, and told her she could enter into no contract without my consent, she stared at me, and broke into contemptuous laughter—laughter of defiance. She answered that she was no wife of mine, and acknowledged the authority of no one save her nearest relative, her brother, the priest.
“For a moment I really thought her brain was turned. I asked her if she could deny that her brother had joined our hands in the little chapel of our native village. She declared I was uttering rank falsehood, or impertinent folly. I swore I would soon prove our marriage, and bring witnesses by the dozen. She laughed again, and said I was welcome to indulge in my own fancies, unless they annoyed her.”
“You said she had destroyed the evidence of the marriage,” said Captain Desfrayne, fixing his eyes on Gilardoni, as if to read his very soul.
“Thunderstruck, confounded, I knew not what to say. I thought it was a ruse to get me to leave the garden, for perhaps she feared I might enter the house, and then be difficult to dislodge. So I no longer thought she had lost her senses, but that she was trying to do by cunning what she could not hope to effect by force or persuasion. But in the end she had her own way. It was of no earthly use arguing with her, or threatening: she was immovable, and answered every sentence I addressed to her by the same firm iteration of the fact that she was no wife of mine.
“She laughed insultingly when I said the law would speedily decide between us. Perhaps she knew it was an idle threat of mine, for what could the law do to bring again to my arms the woman I had deluded myself into imagining loved me? I was unable to guess what she meant by so boldly denying she had been married to me. In brief, I left her. I lost no time, but hurried back to obtain proof of my marriage.”
CHAPTER XXII.
A VISION OF FREEDOM.
“On my return to our native village, after an absence of some two months,” continued Gilardoni, “I found that the priest, Lucia’s brother, had departed. His successor—a stranger—received me very kindly; but when I revealed to him my painful situation, and asked his advice, he looked perfectly distressed. When I begged him to let me have a copy of the register of my marriage, he told me, with much agitation, that the book had been stolen.”
“Stolen!—by her?” exclaimed Paul Desfrayne.
“Without a doubt,” replied Gilardoni. “He had not arrived at the time it was purloined. I believe that the night Lucia fled from my home she gained access to the chapel, taking the keys from her brother’s room. It was not until the eve of his departure that he knew anything of the loss, for there had not been any occasion to use the book during those last weeks.”