“Oh, by the way, Priscilla,” said he, “you may as well tell mother just now all there is to be told about this disagreeable business. I have said that it is unlikely to take up more than a few minutes of the judge’s time. You can best do it alone, I know.”
He bolted.
His mother smiled, and Priscilla laughed outright; it was so like a man—each knew that that was just what the other was thinking—“so like a man!”
The elder lady’s smile was still on her face when Priscilla said:
“There’s really very little to be told about this disagreeable affair; but it must be faced. The fact is that we are applying to a judge to have my first marriage—that shocking mockery of a marriage—annulled, and everybody says that there will be no difficulty whatever about it.”
“I don’t suppose that there should be any difficulty, my dear,” said Mrs. Wingfield. “But what would be the good of it?”
“Something has happened which makes it absolutely necessary,” replied Priscilla. “But it is really the case that what has happened will make it very much easier for the judge. The wretch who, with a charge of fraud hanging over him, did not hesitate to make the attempt to involve me in his ruin, went straight from the gaol to America.”
Mrs. Wingfield nodded.
“Don’t trouble yourself, dear,” she said. “I know all the story; it is not all squalid; you must not forget that he died trying to save the others.”
“That was his lie,” cried Priscilla. “He managed to get safely to the shore and he turned up here trying to get money out of us to buy him off. Jack showed him the door pretty quickly; so now you can understand how necessary it is that we should have the marriage nullified. A judge can do it in five minutes. Jack has been to Liscomb and Liscomb, and they told him so.” (She was not now giving evidence in a court of law.) “Oh, yes; they had the opinion of Sir Edward upon it—five minutes! But in the meantime——”