“We can’t fail; she goes willingly—or, if not, unwillingly; but failure is out of the question. Your object is, that she should not be Lady Wardle, is it not so?”
“Yes, undoubtedly.”
“And to secure this, it is worth while incurring some risk?”
“Certainly; but I should like to know the extent of that risk.”
“I’m no lawyer, and can’t tell you what class of misdemeanor the law makes it; not to say that the offence is one which differs according to the judge who tries it; but the question to which you will haye to look is this: If the girl be satisfied that she is really married, however grieved the old man may be, he will never disturb that fact. He’ll shut himself up in his castle, and let his beard grow. A great shock at his age lasts for the remainder of life, and he’ll nurse his grief till it lays him in the grave.”
“Then there must be a marriage?”
“Some sort of marriage, Irish or Scotch, they have them of all sorts and complexions; but English law smashes them, just to show these poor Celts in what a barbarism they are living, and that even their most solemn contracts are a farce, if not ratified by us here.”
“So that I could marry again if I wished it?”
“Of course you could. Why, scores of fellows about town have gone through that sort of humbug. Don’t you know Lawson—Jim Lawson? Well, he married his sister’s governess before he married Lady Lucy King; and they wanted to make a fuss about it; but it was proved that it was only a lark on his part, though she was quite serious about it; and the priest, too, was only in deacon’s orders, or it was after canonical hours, and it was all irregular, even to the ring on her finger, which Harry Bushe said was copper, and so the Lords smashed it, as they always do these Irish things, and Jimmy married the other woman.”
“I wish there was to be no marriage at all.”