“Yes,” she answered, “an incurable sorrow.”
She burst into tears, the first she had shed since she left her home, and sobbed passionately for some moments, leaning against the Trianon spinet, raining her tears upon the Vernis Martin in a way that would have made Mrs. Tomkison’s blood run cold.
“How weak I am!” she said impatiently, as she dried her eyes and choked back her sobs. “I thought I was accustomed to my sorrow by this time. God knows it is no new thing! It seems a century old already.”
“Sit down, and tell me all about it,” said Clement Cancellor quietly, drawing forward a chair for her, and then seating himself by her side. “I cannot help you till you have told me all your trouble; and you know I shall help you if I can. I can sympathise with you, in any case.”
“Yes, I am sure of that,” she answered sadly; and then, falteringly but clearly, she told him the whole story, from its beginning in the days of her childhood till the end yesterday. She held back nothing, she spared no one. Freely, as to her father confessor, she told all. “I have left him for ever,” she concluded. “Have I done right?”
“Yes, you have done right. Anything less than that would have been less than right. If you are sure of your facts as to the relationship—if Mr. Greswold’s first wife was your father’s daughter—there was no other course open to you. There was no alternative.”
“And my marriage is invalid in law?” questioned Mildred.
“I do not think so. Law does not always mean justice. If this young lady was your father’s natural daughter she had no status in the eye of the law. She was not your sister—she belonged to no one, in the eye of the law. She had no right to bear your father’s name. So, if you accept the civil law for your guide, you may still be George Greswold’s wife—you may ignore the tie between you and his first wife. Legally it has no existence.”
Mildred crimsoned, and then grew deadly pale. In the eye of the law her marriage was valid. She was not a dishonoured woman—a wife and no wife. She might still stand by her husband’s side—go down to the grave as his companion and sweetheart. They who so short a time ago were wedded lovers might be lovers again, all clouds dispersed, the sunshine of domestic peace upon their pathway—if she were content to be guided by the law.
“Should you think me justified if I were to accept my legal position, and shut my eyes to all the rest?” she asked, knowing but too well what the answer would be.