The Living Link: A Novel

by James De Mille

“By such plausible reasoning as this he drove away my last objection, and so, with out any further hesitation, I went about that task.

“But oh, how hard it was! Over and over again I felt like giving up. But always he was ready to urge me on, until at last it was accomplished, and ended as you remember.”

Miss Fortescue paused here, and made no reply. Edith said not a word. Why should she? What availed this woman's repentance now?

“I came here,” continued Miss Fortescue at length, “first of all to explain this, but to tell you other things also. I must now tell you something which makes your position more painful than I thought it would be. I soon found out the full depth of Captain Dudleigh's villainy. While I thought that you only were deceived, I found that I the one who was most deceived.

“After that marriage in the chapel we went back to Dalton, and there he abused me in the most frightful manner. He pretended to be enraged because I rebuked him in the chapel. His rage was only a pretense. Then it all came out. He told me plainly that my marriage with him was a mockery; that the man Porter who had married was not a clergyman at all, but a creature of his whom he had bribed to officiate; that Reeves was not a captain, and that his testimony in any case would be useless. All this was crushing. It was something that was so entirely in accordance with my own fears that I had not a word to say. He railed at me like a madman, and informed me that he had only tolerated me here at Dalton so as to use me as his tool. And this was our last interview. He left me there, and I have never seen him since. He said he was your husband, and was going to live at Dalton. I could do nothing. I went, however, to the gates, got sight of Wiggins, and for your sake I told him all. I thought it was better for you to remain under the authority of Wiggins than to be in the power of such a villain as Captain Dudleigh. I told Wiggins also that I still had a hope that my marriage was valid. I went back at once to London, and tried to find out clergymen named Porter. I have seen several, and written to many others whose names I have seen on the church list, but none of them know any thing about such a marriage as mine. I began, therefore, to fear that he was right, and if so—I was not his wife.”

Silence followed now for some time. Miss Fortescue was waiting to see the effect of her story, and Edith was meditating upon the facts with which this strange revelation dealt. Although she had been so great a sufferer, still she did not feel resentment now against this betrayer. For this one was no longer the miserable, perfidious go-between, but rather an injured wife led to do wrong by the pressure put upon her, and by her own love.

“Then that was not a mock marriage?” said she at last.

“By justice and right it was no marriage,” said Miss Fortescue; “but how the law may regard it I do not know.”

“Has Sir Lionel been heard of yet?” asked Edith, after another pause.

“Sir Lionel!” said Miss Fortescue, in surprise. “Oh, I had forgotten. Miss Dalton, that, I grieve to say, was all a fiction. He was never out of the country.”