"Oh, Claudia, Claudia, that you should be compelled to speak so of one whom you made your husband!"
"Papa, dear, you asked me a question and I have replied to it truthfully."
"My dear, I had a motive for putting that question. I wished to know whether a spark of love for that man survived in your heart to make his punishment a matter of painful interest to you. For to vindicate you, Claudia, it may become necessary to prosecute him with the utmost rigor of the law; necessary, in fact, to disgrace and ruin him," said the judge solemnly.
"Papa, dear, what are you talking about? Prosecute him to the utmost extent of the law? Disgrace and ruin him? Why, it appears to me that you do not know the circumstances, as of course you cannot. He has schemed so successfully, papa, that he has everything his own way. All the evidence, the false but damning evidence, is in his favor and against me. It seems to me, reflecting coolly upon the circumstances, to be quite impossible that he should be punished or I should be vindicated—in this world at least."
"Claudia, I know more of these circumstances than you think I do. I know more of them than you do; and I repeat that, in order to vindicate your honor fully, it may be necessary to prosecute Malcolm, Lord Vincent, with the utmost rigor of the law; to bring him to the felon's dock; to send him to the hulks. Now, are you willing that this should be done?"
Claudia turned very pale and answered:
"Let the man have justice, papa, if it places him on the scaffold."
"There are two courses open to us, Claudia. The first is—simply to let him alone until he brings his suit for divorce, and then to meet him on that ground with such testimony as shall utterly defeat him and destroy his plea. In that case you will be vindicated from the charge that he has brought against you, but not from the reproach that, however undeserved, will attach to a woman who has been the defendant in a divorce trial, and he will go unpunished. The second course is to prosecute him at once in the criminal court for certain of his crimes that have come to my knowledge, and so put him out of the possibility of suing for a divorce. And in that case your honor would go unquestioned, and he would be condemned to a felon's fate— penal servitude for years. Now, Claudia, I place the man's destiny in your hands. Shall we defend ourselves against him in a divorce court, or shall we prosecute him in a criminal court?"
"Papa," said Claudia, hesitating, and then speaking low, "what does
Ishmael advise?"
"Ishmael? How did you know that he was with me, my dear?"