The Bigamist

by F. E. Mills Young

Pamela passed an anxious week waiting for news of Arnott, but no letter arrived from him. A fortnight passed, a month, without bringing any news. This neglect confirmed her worst fears. She began seriously to consider her position. If Herbert had deserted her she could not continue living as she was doing in his house. It was monstrous to allow herself to be kept in this manner by a man who no longer wanted her.

But the difficulty was how to act. To seek outside advice, it would be necessary to disclose the shameful secret of her marriage. That, she realised, with its consequent disgrace and imprisonment for Herbert, would seem to him a paltry act of revenge on her part. She experienced as great a shrinking from punishing him, as from the thought of publishing her own shame, and bringing ostracism on her children.

The expedient of writing to Dare and making the demand on his friendship which he had asked her so urgently to make, crossed her mind more than once. She could consult him without fear that he would reveal her secret to others. His insistent request that she should appeal to him if in any difficulty, seemed almost as though he had foreseen this trouble looming ahead for her. Could it be that he knew something of Arnott’s past? Impossible! No one, save themselves and Lucy Arnott, knew of his bigamous second marriage.

She sat down to write to Dare one day at Arnott’s desk in the room he called his study. Save that he kept it for his exclusive use and wrote his letters there, it had no pretence at being a study; no one, least of all Arnott, ever studied there. Pamela opened the desk and searched for writing materials. Then she began a letter to Dare.

“You told me once,” she reminded him, “that if ever I was in need of help such as a friend only could render, I was to write to you. My friend, I am in need of help now. I am in great trouble...”

Here she broke off, dissatisfied with this attempt, and tore the paper into minute fragments and threw them into the waste-paper basket. Then she started again. She got a little further with the second letter before this too occurred to her as unsatisfactory and followed the fate of the former attempt. In all she wrote six letters, none of which pleased her, and were each in turn consigned to the basket. Then, having exhausted the note-paper, she paused and sat back in the chair and thought. Was it wise after all to write to him? What could he, or any one, do to help her in her present distress? It was a matter which could only be settled between herself and Herbert, unless she was prepared to face the ordeal of a public scandal.

But the memory of Dare’s face as he had pleaded with her in the garden, the sympathy of the strong kindly voice, the earnest insistence of his manner when he spoke of his desire to be helpful, and his right as her sincere friend to the privilege of her confidence, awoke in her a craving for his help, for the comfort of his advice. She was conscious also of a wish for his presence; it would be an immense relief merely to talk with him.

Quickly she resolved to make a further attempt to write to him, and searched in the desk for another sheet of paper. She opened the drawers, and turned over their contents,—bills principally, and old letters of Arnott’s. From among a pile of loose papers a cablegram fell out, face upward, with a cutting from a newspaper pinned to the back of it. The writing caught Pamela’s eye; the brief message on the little yellow form was fully exposed. “Lucy Arnott died this morning.” And the cablegram was dated ten months ago.

Pamela took it up and stared at the message with dull, comprehending eyes. Ten months earlier Arnott had received this news of his wife’s death, and he had withheld the knowledge from her. Ten months ago he had it in his power to legalise their union, and he had not done it. He had wilfully deceived her in the matter of his wife’s death. There was only one interpretation to put upon his conduct: he had no wish, no intention, to right the wrong he had done her.

Pamela shivered, and laid the cablegram down on the desk and stared at it, faint and sick with the pain and anger, the shamed resentment with which this knowledge filled her. Arnott’s infamous conduct showed her plainly how lightly he regarded her, how little of honour, of love or respect he felt for the girl he had cheated into marrying him, and had made the mother of his children. Free now to marry her, he was satisfied to keep her in the shameful position of a mistress, and to follow lightly after illicit loves.