“Yes,” said Clive softly, “it’s all over now.”
“And how I used to reckon upon it all!” continued the Doctor. “You two married, and the little children springing up—hers and yours, boy, to make my old life young again. But it’s all over. I won’t say I’ll never see her again, but I’ve done with her; and as for that miserable, cunning, unprincipled scoundrel, how long will it be before he’s laid up with D.T., or something worse—if there is anything worse? I’ll go and attend him gratis, and pay for his funeral afterwards with pleasure.”
“No, no, not you,” said Clive quietly.
“I will, sir; I shall consider it a duty to that poor girl to make her a widow as soon as possible, so that she may live in peace and repent.”
Clive shook his head.
“The man she loves,” he said softly.
“She doesn’t; she can’t love such a scoundrel. The brainless, little, thoughtless idiot! She believed all that of you directly, and ran off to marry the blackguard who has been trying for weeks to undermine you, so as to get my money. Why, I find he has been constantly coming here to see her, and she in her vanity played with him—a little coquette—played with the confounded serpent, till he wound round and stung her.”
Clive hung his head.
“And all the time you and I would have been ready to knock the man down who had dared to suggest that she was trifling with you. Bah! they’re a poor, weak, pitiful lot, the women, Clive. I’ve doctored enough of them to know all their little weaknesses, my lad. A poor, pitiful lot!”
“Do you think so?” said Clive quietly.