"I was married, Hopkins, at last. Married to a woman of beauty and wealth and high position, utterly unknown to me, and not only were my own mother and my best friends absent, but I myself had only happened in by accident.
"My rage knew no bounds, and as the fiend and his bride passed down the aisle amid the showered congratulations of the aristocratic multitude, I impotently endeavoured to strike him, of which he was serenely unconscious; but as he left the church my voice, which had been stifled with indignation, at last grew clear, and I howled out high above the crowds,—
"'You vile scoundrel, restore me to myself! Give me back the presence of which you have robbed me, or may every curse in all the universe fall upon you and your house for ever.'
"He heard me, Toppleton, and his answer was a smile—a green smile—seeing which his bride, the Lady Ariadne Maude Fackleton, fainted as they drove away.
"That, Hopkins, is substantially the tale of villainy I have come to tell. Little remains to be told. The fiend has been true to his promise to make me famous, for every passing year has brought some new honour to my name. I have been elevated to the peerage; I have been ambassador to the most brilliant courts of Europe; I have been all that one could hope to be, and yet I have not been myself. I ask your assistance. Will you not give it to me?"
"Edward," said Toppleton warmly, "I will. I will be candid with you, Edward. I am almost as ignorant of law as a justice of the peace, but for your sake I will study and see what can be done. I will fight your case for you to the very last, but first tell me one thing. Your name is what?"
"Edward Pompton Chatford."
"What!" cried Toppleton, "the famous novelist?"
"He made me so," said the exile.
"And the fiend's present title is?"