D'Esmonde resumed as calmly as before: “Yes, my Lord, Lola took care that everything should be regular and in form; and the names of Gerald Acton and Lola de Seviglia are inscribed on the records of the Collegiate Chapel. Two of the witnesses are still living; one of them, then a poor boy carrying messages for the convent, is now captain in the Pope's Guard.”
“Come, come,——enough of this,” cried Norwood, impatiently. “I see the drift of it all. When the Church interposes her kind offices, the question resolves itself always into money. How much—how much?”
“You mistake greatly, my Lord; but your error does not offend me. I know too well how men of your form of belief regard men of mine! I am not here either to combat a prejudice, or assert a right. I tell you, therefore, calmly and dispassionately, that no demand is made upon you. There is no siege laid against you, in person or in purse.”
“Then how does the matter concern me, if this girl be alive?—and even of that I have my doubts—”
“You need have none,” said D'Esmonde, interruptingly. “Lady Norwood——-”
“Stop! By Heaven! if you dare to give her that name, I'll not answer for myself.”
“I call her as she styles herself,——as she is called by all around her. Yes, my Lord, the shame is as open as gossip and malevolence can make it. The foreigner is but too glad when he can involve an English name and title in a reproach that we are prone to cast upon him. A peeress is a high mark for scandal! Who stoops to ask how or when or where she became this? Who interposes a charitable word of explanation or of incredulity? From what you know of life, on what side, think you, will lie the ingenuity and craft? Whether will the evidence preponderate to prove her your wife or to exonerate you? At all events, how will the matter read in England? I speak not of your ruined hopes of an alliance befitting your high station. This is beyond repairing! But are you ready to meet the shame and ignominy of the story? Nothing is too base, nothing too infamous, for an imputation. Will any one, I ask of you—will any one assert that you are ignorant of all this? Would any one believe who heard it? Will not the tale be rather circulated with all its notes and comments? Will not men fill up every blank by the devices of their own bad ingenuity? Will not some assert that you are a partner in your own infamy, and that your fingers have touched the price of your shame?”
“Stop!” cried Norwood. “Another word—one syllable more like this—and, by the Heaven above us, your lips will never move again!”
“It would be a sorry recompense for my devotion to you, my Lord,” said the Abbé, with a profound sigh.
“Devotion!” repeated Norwood, in a voice of insulting sarcasm; “as if I were to be tricked by this! Keep these artifices for some trembling devotee, some bedridden or palsied worshipper of saintly relics and holy legerdemain; I 'm not the stuff for such deceptions!”