"Be firm, Esther. I'll put him in the penitentiary. I'll put him in the penitentiary!"
The bride opens the packet. Many folded documents fall to her lap. She is quick to spread out the chief letter.
The bridegroom pulls the silk handkerchief off his white shirt-front and wipes his perspiring forehead again and again. He leans over her shoulder to read. The writing is large and distinct:
Thursday Afternoon, Nov. 30.
MY DEARLY BELOVED WIFE AND WIDOW:
It may be barely possible that I have lived these years of shame and degradation to some good purpose, and for the following reasons: The man whom you now love so well--the man whom you are about to marry--George Harpwood--is an adventurer and a criminal.
I inclose documents which show that on Monday, the 4th of August, 1873, this George Harpwood, described and photographed, married Mary Berners, who now lives at Crescentville, a suburb of Philadelphia. She bears the name of Mrs. Mary Harpwood, and has not been divorced to her knowledge. Beside deserting her, Harpwood robbed her and reduced her to penury.
I inclose documents showing that five years earlier, or on Wednesday, the 8th of January, 1868, George Harpwood eloped with a child wife, Eleanor Hastings, and basely deserted her within four weeks. She now resides with her sister-in-law, Mrs. Moses Hastings, on Ox-Bow Prairie, a few miles south of Sturgis, Michigan.
It is my request that the little store and its belongings, including the bank account of Robert Chalmers, so-called, be given to the widow of the late Walter B. Corkey.
The bitterness of life is yours. But the bitterness of death is mine.