“My Lord, my Lord!” came, painfully mixed with long-drawn sobs, from the lips of the young bride. “My own, own Richard! And only two months since we were married!—Have you the heart to part us?” she cried, suddenly turning to Sir Piers. “Did you never love any one?”
“Never, Madam.” For once in his life, Sir Piers spoke truth, Never—except Serena: and not much then.
“Brute!” And with this calumnious epithet—for brutes can love dearly—Margaret resumed her former attitude.
“Lady Margaret, I must trouble you,” said Sir Piers, in tones of hardness veneered with civility.
“My darling, you must let me go,” interposed the young Earl of Gloucester, who seemed scarcely less miserable than his bride.
“Magot, my child, we may not stay justice,” said the distressed tones of her father.
Yet she held tight until Sir Piers tore her away.
“Look to the damsel,” he condescended to say, with a glance at Doucebelle and Bruno. “Oh, ha!—where is the priest that blessed this wedding? I must have him.”
“There was no priest,” sobbed the Countess, lifting her head from her husband’s arm, where she had let it sink: “it was per verba depresenti.”
“That we will see,” was the cool response of Sir Piers. “Take all the priests, Sir Drew.—Now, my Lady!”