“If your honor will adjourn the case for twenty-four hours I will undertake to bring this man’s wife into court. She is at present living at my country seat, Mondreer, in the capacity of housekeeper.”
An insolent, insulting laugh from Anglesea interrupted the speaker for a moment.
“She is in the service of Mrs. Force, and in charge of our country home during our absence,” continued Abel Force, controlling his temper, and speaking quietly.
“You may adjourn the case, your honor, for the sake of producing this woman; but when she shall be produced she will be nothing more than an impostor—an adventuress. The only true test of this question will be to send an accredited agent to California to search the parish register of Sebastian. Two agents may be sent, for that matter; one on my part, one on the part of Mr. Force. That will secure fair play; but they will find no record of any marriage between me and any woman whatever. How should they? Why, your honor, I was, in that August, 18—, not in California, nor in any part of America; not on this side of the Atlantic Ocean, but on the other side, in England, at Anglewood Manor, attending on my invalid first wife, Lady Mary Anglesea, who died suddenly on the twenty-fifth of that same August. How, then, could I have been in California, and married to this adventuress who has been brought forward as my wife? Here is the notice of my first wife’s death. You will see that it occurred on the twenty-fifth of August, just twenty-four days after I am stated to have married this California widow. Will your honor be pleased to examine it?”
And Anglesea drew the little printed slip from his pocketbook, and passed it to the judge.
That venerable dignitary read it, and looked somewhat puzzled. In fact, the case was growing more involved at every turn.
“Your honor must perceive that if I were in attendance on my invalid first wife, who died on the twenty-fifth of August, at Anglewood Manor, England, I could not well have been in St Sebastian, California, courting and marrying that impostor who claimed me.”
The judge looked exceedingly perplexed.
“Or if I could by any possibility have married this Californian woman on the first of August, as the false certificate states, that marriage would not have been legal because my first wife was then living, and lived until the twenty-fifth, when she died. And, consequently, in either case, I am the husband of this young lady, Odalite Anglesea, here present.”