"I wonder that Mr. Cass--knowing him as he did--did not forbid the marriage."
"What would have been the use? His sister was her own mistress; she had her own money--a large fortune--and she was madly in love with Marshall. She would have done anything for him; she simply grovelled at his feet. Her infatuation was the talk of all Westham at the time I was starving at the Turnpike House.'
"Extraordinary!" mused Geoffrey. "She is so masterful a woman that I wonder she could have fallen in love with so weak a man."
"It is one of those things in which a woman's nature is stronger than her principles," said Mrs. Jenner. "Besides, he was fascinating, and she was no longer a young woman," she added, with a touch of feminine spite. "At any rate, she was delighted when he fell in love with her, and determined not to let him go."
"Was he in love with her?"
"No: perhaps I was wrong to put it that way. No doubt he wanted her money. Did he leave the firm?"
"Yes; shortly after his marriage."
"Ah! Then depend upon it, Mr. Cass got rid of him. He married Miss Cass for her money--he must have been in great straits when he committed that forgery. Oh, I quite believe it was he who did it: he was wonderfully clever at imitating handwriting. I knew of that accomplishment long before I was married."
"How you hate him!" Geoffrey could not help exclaiming.
"I am a very good hater," she said, quietly; "and I have every reason to hate that man. It was he who got my husband dismissed, and it was certainly he who led him into dissipated ways; for Jenner was not a bad man during the early years of our married life. It was only when he came under Marshall's influence that he took to drink and began to treat me cruelly. Oh, I know what I owe him only too well! I should like to see him arrested for this murder, and hanged--hanged!"