“With this assurance I must rest contented for the present,” observed the Marquis. “But hear the resolution to which I have come,” he continued, rising from his seat, and speaking in a tone of excitement. “Hitherto I have done all I could—aye, and far more than the generality of injured husbands would have done—to cast a veil over the unhappy circumstances which I have this morning related to you. But should she refuse to deliver up my daughter to my care—should she entrench herself behind the decision of the Chancery Court—I shall then remain peaceable no longer. It shall be war—open war—between her and me. I will appeal to the tribunals of my country—I will apply to the Ecclesiastical Court and the House of Lords for a divorce—and I will adopt the necessary proceedings and furnish the proper evidence to induce the Lord Chancellor to deprive the erring mother of the care of her child. Such is my determination, Lord William—and you may use the menace, which is no idle one, to bring that woman to reason.”
With these words the Marquis pressed the hand of the young nobleman, and took his leave hastily.
Mrs. Mortimer, who was seated in a cab at a little distance, watching for the departure of the Marquis, beheld him enter his carriage, which immediately drove away; and the humbler vehicle was thereupon directed to follow the more imposing equipage.
The carriage proceeded into the Strand, and stopped at the door of an eminent banking-house, which the Marquis entered.
Mrs. Mortimer, having dogged him thither, alighted at a little distance and dismissed the cab.
She watched the old nobleman come forth again; and then she repaired to a coffee-house in the neighbourhood where she ordered some refreshment to be served up in a private room. She likewise demanded writing materials; and when she was left to herself, she drew forth the cheque for six hundred pounds which the Marquis of Delmour had given her.
“Now for the grand blow,” she thought within herself, as she carefully examined the draft: “and it must be struck boldly, too! But the aim is worth all the risk:—sixty thousand pounds or transportation—those are the alternatives! I have been possessed of enough money in my life to know how sweet it is—and I have seen enough of transportation to be well aware how bitter it is! And the former is so sweet that it is worth while chancing all the bitters of the latter to obtain it. Besides—apart from the delicious feeling of having a vast fortune at my command—how delightful will it be to over-reach the haughty Perdita—or Laura, as she chooses to call herself!”
And here the old woman’s lips curled into a contemptuous sneer.
“I have hitherto managed matters cleverly enough,” she continued in her musings. “Ah! hah! Lord William Trevelyan thought that I called upon him either to gratify some idle curiosity or to extort money. He little suspected my drift! It was to see whether the Marquis had been to him—to learn whether my information had been found correct—to ascertain whether I might present the draft at the bankers’. And then the old Marquis himself!—it was lucky that I found him there—I was saved the trouble of calling at his mansion to worm out of him whether he had instructed his bankers to pay the cheque,—not my paltry draft for six hundred—but Perdita’s grand amount of sixty thousand! In all this I succeeded admirably: and now for the desperate venture.”
Having thus communed with herself, Mrs. Mortimer partook of a little refreshment; for she was anxious to while away an hour before she went to the bank, so as not to present herself too soon after the visit of the Marquis of Delmour to the establishment.