“None!” replied Craven Black curtly. “Again I demand your choice!”
Rufus wrung his hands in wild despair.
“If I abandon her, what will become of her?” he moaned. “She will die of starvation! My poor little wife!”
“Do not call her again by that title!” cried Craven Black frowning. “Can you not comprehend that the marriage is illegal—is null and void—that she is not your wife? When she hears the truth, she will turn from you in loathing. As to her support, I will provide for her. She shall not starve, as she will do if you are sent to prison for perjury. For the last time I demand your decision. Will you give up the girl peaceably, or will you be forced to?”
There was a moment of dead silence. Then the answer came brokenly from the young man’s lips.
“I—I give her up!” he muttered. “God help us both!”
“It is well,” declared Craven Black, more kindly. “You could not do otherwise. You like the girl now, but a year hence you will smile at your present folly. Why should you fling away all your possibilities of wealth and honor for a silly boyish fancy? Cheer up, Rufus. Throw aside all that despair, and accept the goods the gods provide you. The girl will marry some one else, as you must do. Your future bride has arrived at Hawkhurst, and to-morrow evening I shall take you to call upon her. I suppose you have eaten nothing since the morning, and your first need is supper.”
He rang the bell vigorously, and to the servant who came up gave an order for supper—to be served in his own parlor. Taking up his lamp, and drawing his son’s arm through his, he conducted Rufus to his own rooms, and seated him in an easy-chair. The young man’s head fell forward on his breast and he sat in silence, but Craven Black, rendered good-natured by the success of his schemes, talked at considerable length of the revenues of Hawkhurst, and the perfections of Lady Wynde, and of Neva, whom he had not yet seen.
The supper of cold game was brought up, and Mr. Black ordered two bottles of wine. Rufus refused to eat, having, as he declared, no appetite, but he drank an entire bottle of wine with a recklessness he had never before displayed, and was finally prevailed upon to take food. When he had finished, he arose abruptly and retired to his own chamber.
The waiter removed the remains of the supper, and Craven Black was left alone. He sat a little while in his chair, with a complacent smile on his fair visage, and then arose and locked his door, and brought forward his small inlaid writing-desk and deposited it upon the table.