“Oh! certainly; I have not the slightest misgiving of it. It was real estate, and could not have been staked in any way, you know.”
Mr. Bolling shook his head.
Unheedful of that wise gesture, Mr. Sutherland asked, “And how does my cousin India bear this?”
“I don’t know—I don’t think she cares about it. Mark, perhaps I oughtn’t to tell you, but I don’t think she cares for anything, or has ever cared for anything, since you and she broke off, nearly seven years ago. She never cared a cent for the man she married”—
“Hush! you must not say that!”
“But I will say it, because it’s the solemn truth. She never cared a sous, cent, marquee, for him, though he loved the very ground she walked on. If ever you saw a man infatuated with a woman, St. Gerald was with India; his eyes followed her fondly wherever she moved. Yes, a year after they were married, I saw him slily take up a glove of hers, and pet it, and talk to it, and kiss it, and put it in his bosom, as if it had been a live thing—the consummate idiot! And the same day I saw him strike her down before him with a blow!”
Mark Sutherland started to his feet, and gazed wildly at the speaker, who reiterated—
“Yes, I did; I saw that with my eyes!”
“And stood by, and permitted a man to strike a woman!”
“I never interfere between man and wife. Besides, what business had she to deceive and marry him, while she loved another—and to meet his attentions with aversion—and finally to be found sobbing hysterically over a lock of black hair, when his was brown? No, if he had killed her on the spot, I should have been sorry for—him. He loved her truly and well. She loathed him. I have seen her shudder all over, if he did but press her hand, or stroke her dainty curls. He felt her repulsion; it drove him mad! To sum up all, Mark, as I said before, a curse is on the place and on the people; they are all going to the dogs, who are not going to the d——l! But now, tell me something about yourself. You are a Judge of the Court, I hear?”