“Thanks, very many. I have kept this little slip, not with the least idea, not with the faintest prevision, that I should ever have this need of it. Nor have I cherished it in tender memory of the dear departed. By no means. I have kept it to gloat over it, as a slave might over his ‘free papers.’ And I have gloated over the words that gave me liberty. ‘Died’—‘Lady Mary Anglesea.’ What a pleasure it is to read over these words!”
“Oh! Oh!” groaned Elfrida Force, wringing her hands. “I think the worst punishment in hell must be the society of devils!”
“Ten thousand thanks, if that compliment is intended for me. It seems higher than my merits, but it shall be the aspiration of my life to live up to it,” said the colonel, with a very low bow.
“Why have you demanded this interview with me? Why have you come here to torment me?” demanded the lady, wringing her hands.
“First of all, to show you, and to prove to you, the true relations in which I stand to your daughter.”
“And of what avail will that be to you? You cannot claim our daughter as your wife without an open confession of having married the Widow Wright during the lifetime of your first wife, and thereby exposing yourself to prosecution for more than one crime, the least of which would send you to State prison—for bigamy, for forgery, for robbery. And do you think your California victim is of a temper and disposition to spare you, when she finds out that she has been so criminally deceived—when she knows that you are not her husband? No! She will prosecute you to the utmost extent of the law. And, even if it were possible to suppose that she could forgive your black villainy, forget her own deep wrongs, and forego vengeance, do you suppose it possible that Abel Force would ever be brought to recognize your claim to his daughter? Never, you may depend on it! He will repudiate your claim as the most shameful insult to his family. He will protect his daughter against you with his life. If needful, he will seek a dissolution of this merely nominal ceremony of marriage in the proper courts of law. Why, Abel Force would see his daughter in her grave before he would see her sacrificed to a man publicly disgraced as you have been!”
“Quite so. I perfectly understand that. The situation would be exceedingly awkward in any light. So, my lady, I am not so mad as to come here to claim immediate possession of my wife. I came, as I said, to prove to you that I have a legal claim upon her; that I am her lawfully wedded husband; that she is my lawful wife. All this seems tautological, vainly repetitive; but, then, repetitions are really necessary to make an impression on some people—on yourself, as a matter of detail.”
“Be as brief as possible, if you please,” said the lady, much relieved by what he had just told her of his non-intention to put in any present claim to the possession of Odalite.
“I will. I shall leave this part of the country in a few hours, and depart for England within a few days. I really think it is the best course for me to pursue at present.”
“I really think it is,” put in the lady.