As soon as she was able to recollect, reflect, and act, she felt that the only hope of recognition as the widow of Lord William Daw rested with the family of the latter; and she determined to go secretly to England. She made her preparations and departed.
She reached London, where, overtaken by the pangs of maternity, she gave birth to a son, and immediately fell into a long and dangerous fever. Upon recovering, she sought the Yorkshire home of her father-in-law, and revealed to him her position.
Marguerite was prepared for doubt, difficulty, and delay, but not for the utter incredulity, scorn, and rejection, to which she was subjected by the arrogant Marquis of Eaglecliff. Marguerite exhibited the certificate of her marriage, and the sole letter her young husband had ever had the power to write to her, and pleaded for recognition.
Now the old marquis knew the handwriting of his son, and of his chaplain; but, feeling outraged by what he chose to consider artifice on the part of Marguerite, disobedience on that of William, and treachery on that of Mr. Murray, he contemptuously put aside the certificate as a forgery, and the letter, beginning “My beloved wife,” as the mere nonsense of a boy-lover writing to his mistress.
Indignant and broken-hearted, Marguerite took her son and returned to her native country; put the boy out to nurse, and then sought her home in Virginia, to reflect, amid its quiet scenes, upon her future course.
Marguerite’s confidential consultations with various eminent lawyers had resulted in no encouragement for her to seek legal redress; she determined to rear her boy in secrecy; and watch if, perchance, some opportunity for successfully pushing his claims should occur. Further, she resolved to remain unmarried, and to devote herself to the welfare of this unacknowledged son, so that, should all his rights of birth be finally denied, she could at last legally adopt him, and make him her sole heir. Somewhat quieted by this resolution, Marguerite De Lancie became once more the ascendant star of fashion. The greater part of each year she spent in the hamlet in the State of New York where she had placed her son at nurse, accounting for her long absences by the defiant answer, “I’ve been gypsying.”
Thus three years slipped away, when at length Marguerite De Lancie met her fate in Philip Helmstedt, the only man whom she ever really loved.
The tale she durst not tell her lover, she insanely hoped might be successfully concealed, or safely confided to her husband. Ah, vain hope! Philip Helmstedt, to the last degree jealous and suspicious, was the worst man on the face of the earth to whom to confide her questionable story.
They were married; and for a time she was lost in the power that attracted, encircled, and swallowed up her whole fiery nature.
From this deep trance of bliss she was electrified by the receipt of a letter, advising her of the sudden and dangerous illness of the unowned child. Here was an exigency for which she was totally unprepared. She prayed Philip Helmstedt to permit her to depart, for a season, unquestioned. This strange petition gave rise to the first misunderstanding between them. With the terrible scenes that followed the reader is already acquainted. She was not suffered to depart.