He was compelled to speak in what my lady called plain English, or she would never have understood him. She could not understand in the least why the fact of Lord Chandos being under twenty-one should make her marriage null and void; illegal, because contracted without his parents' consent. She had turned to him with flashing eyes.
"Are the laws of England all framed for the convenience of the rich?" she asked.
And, proud as he was of his legal knowledge, the lawyer had hesitated before the fire of her question.
She understood at last—she saw what Mr. Sewell called the justice of the case—the reasons why such a law was needful, and she knew that she was not the lawful wife of Lancelot, Lord Chandos. She looked into the stern face of her companion with eyes filled with awful despair.
"He did not know it," she said; "only tell me that, and I shall be happier. He did not know it?"
"No," said Mr. Sewell; "I am quite sure that Lord Chandos was ignorant of the fact—it never occurred to him; if it had done so, he would have deferred his marriage until he came of age."
"I shall take some comfort in that," she said, slowly. "If he has erred, it has been done in ignorance and innocence. You say that the wrong can be righted next June; that he can marry me then without the consent of either of his parents."
"Certainly he can," replied the lawyer.
Something of the shock of despair passed from her face as he uttered these words. She folded her arms over her breast with the repressed passion of a tragedy queen.
"Then I have no fear," she said. "Were the time twice as long, the cruelty twice as great, the law twice as strong, he would return to me true and faithful, as he loves me. You can tell his mother that."