‘Why, Sampson, what are you doing out there?’ he cried. ‘Come in and have some supper. You haven’t eaten much since we left Paris.’
‘Much,’ echoed Sampson dismally. ‘A segment of hard biscuit on board the boat, and a cup of weak tea at Dover, have been my only sustenance. But I don’t feel that I care about supper,’ he added, surveying the table with a melancholy eye. ‘I ought to be hungry, but I’m not.’
‘Why, you seem quite low-spirited, Mr. Sampson,’ said Laura, kindly.
‘I am feeling a little low to-night, Mrs. Treverton.’
‘Nonsense, man! Low-spirited on such a night as this, after the triumph you achieved at Auray! Wasn’t it wonderful, Laura, that Sampson’s acumen should have hit upon the idea of my first marriage being invalid? It was the only chance we had—the only thing that could have saved the estate.’
‘Of course it was,’ replied Sampson, ‘and that was why I thought of it. A lawyer is bound to see every chance, however remote. I don’t know that in my own mind I thought it really likely that your first wife had been encumbered with a living husband when you married her; but I saw that it was just the one loophole for your escape from a most confounded fix.’
Cheered by the idea that he had saved his client’s fortune, and comforted by a tumbler or two of irreproachable champagne, Mr. Sampson managed to eat a very good supper, and he trudged briskly homewards on the stroke of midnight, tolerably content with himself and life in general.
‘Perhaps after all I may be better off as a bachelor than with the most fascinating of wives,’ he reflected. ‘But I must come to an understanding with Eliza. Cheeseparing is all very well as long as my cheese is not pared. I must let Eliza know that I’m master, and that my tastes are to be consulted in every particular. When I think of the melted butter they gave me last night at Veefoor’s, and the sauce with that sole normong, I shudder at the recollection of the bill-sticker’s paste I’ve been asked to eat at my own table. If Eliza is to go on keeping house for me, there must be a revolution in the cookery.’
John Treverton and his wife spent a Sabbath of exceeding peacefulness. They appeared at church together morning and evening, much to the discomfiture of Edward Clare, who was surprised to see them looking so happy.
‘Does he think the storm has blown over?’ Edward said to himself. ‘Poor wretch. He will discover his mistake before long.’