“And the woman’s letters—did they make anything clear?”
“The woman’s three letters made a good deal clear. The one of the earliest date suggested very clearly that she was the man’s wife.”
“What, Blaydon’s wife!” cried Jack. “That would be the best possible news for us.”
“So it occurred to me,” said Major Crosbie. “If the man had been married—as the letters suggested he was—some years before he came under my notice—under our notice, I should say—and if his wife was alive, as she must have been when those letters of hers were written, the curious case becomes a very simple case indeed.”
“And the letters suggested marriage?” said Priscilla, interrogatively.
“They undoubtedly suggested marriage—at least, they would have done so to someone with a smaller experience than I have had of such correspondence. But from what I know I should say that to assume that because a woman addresses a man as ‘My own husband,’ she is that man’s lawful wife, would be a very unwise thing to do. Such a form of address, I have learnt by experience, comes quite naturally to the woman who is not married to the man but who should be on the grounds of the most elementary morality. It is the form used by the woman who has been deserted by the man, but who hopes to get back to her former place in his affection. She seems to think, poor thing, that if she assumes the title of wife whenever she has the chance, she will in time come to feel that she is his wife. I am not sure if you recognize the—the—what shall I call it?—the naturalness of all this.”
He glanced first at Jack and then at Priscilla, and paused as if for their acquiescence in his suggestion.
They acquiesced. Jack nodded and muttered “Quite so.” Priscilla said:
“I am sure it is natural—it is quite plausible. But it might be possible, might it not? to gather from the rest of the letters whether the woman was trying to bring back a husband or a lover.”
“It is sometimes a good deal more difficult to do so than you could imagine,” replied the Governor. “I used to think that I could determine this point by the character of the letters; the most earnest letters—those that were the most loving—the most full of endearment—were written by the woman to her lover; the tamest—the most formal, with a touch of nasty upbraiding, came from the legal wife to her legal husband. That was the general principle on which I drew my conclusions; but I soon found out how easy it was to make a mistake by building on such foundations only. You see, women differ so amazingly in temper and in temperament, leaving education and ‘the complete letter-writer’ out of the question altogether, that a wife who is not quite a wife may be carried away by her feelings of the moment, and say something so bitter that you could only believe it to come from a true wife, and the true wife may be really in love with her husband, and ready to condone his lapses without a word of reproach. That is how it is quite easy for one to make a mistake in trying to differentiate on the basis of correspondence only.”