“Ah, what do you mean?” inquired Drusilla, with an anxious sigh.
“Not to marry Alick myself, you may rest assured,” answered Anna, disdainfully.
“Ah, no, for you could not do that.”
“Of course not, as I consider him already married. You are his wife, in right, if not in law, Drusilla,” said Miss Lyon, emphatically.
“I know I am so by right, and I believe I am so by law,” answered Drusilla solemnly.
“Yet those who know more of law than we do differ from us. And this makes your position, Drusilla, very doubtful, very unsafe, and deeply humiliating.”
“I know it, I feel it, through all my darkened spirit and in every pulse of my breaking heart.”
“This state of affairs should not be permitted to exist for a moment, especially—oh, most especially—as you are so soon to be a mother. No question of the lawfulness of your union with Alexander Lyon should be permitted to arise.”
“No, no, no!”
“But how to silence such questions forever, how to legalize your union and legitimatize your child—there is the difficulty.”