“A few months,” repeated Wiggins. “Well, it has come to this. That is the immediate cause of her flight, and of her present suffering.”
“I—I—married them,” stammered Mr. Munn; “but what of that? Is her unhappiness my fault? How can I help it? Am I responsible for the future condition of those couples whom I marry? Surely this is a strange thing to say.”
“You well know,” said Wiggins, “what sort of a marriage this was. It was no common one. It was done in secret. Why did you steal into these grounds like a thief, and do this infamous thing?”
“Why—why,” faltered the unhappy vicar, growing more terrified and conscience-stricken every minute—“Captain Dudleigh asked me. I cannot refuse to marry people.”
“No, Sir, you can not when they come to you fairly; you can not, I well know, when the conditions of the law are satisfied. But was that so here? Did you not steal into these grounds? Did you not come by night, in secret, conscious that you were doing wrong, and did you not have to steal out in the same way? And your only excuse is that Captain Dudleigh asked you!”
“He—he—showed very strong reasons why I should do so,” said Mr. Munn, who by this time was fearfully agitated—“very strong reasons, I do assure you, Sir, and all my humanity was—a—aroused.”
“Your humanity?” sneered Wiggins. “Where was your humanity for her?”
“For her!” exclaimed the vicar. “Why, she wanted it. She loved him.”
“Loved him! Pooh! She hated him worse than the devil.”
“Then what did she marry him for?” cried Mr. Munn, at his wits' end.