And the Senator had answered with heat, "I cannot follow you there at all! The law which ties a living woman to a man who may be dead, nay, probably is dead, is a monstrous law."
And Mr. Stephens had answered very quietly, "What if John Dampier be alive?"
"And is this all I can tell my poor son?"
And then it was that Mr. Stephens, looking at him doubtfully, had answered, "Well no, for there is a way out. It is not a good way—I doubt if it is a right way—but still it is a way. It is open to poor little Nancy to go to America, to become naturalized there, and then to divorce her husband, in one of your States, for desertion. The divorce so obtained would be no divorce in England, but many Englishmen and Englishwomen have taken that course as a last resort—" He had waited a moment, and then added, "I doubt, however, very, very much if Nancy would consent to do such a thing, even if she reciprocates—which is by no means sure—your son's—er—feeling for her."
"Feeling?" Senator Burton's voice had broken, and then he had cried out fiercely, "Why use such an ambiguous word, when we both know that Gerald is killing himself for love of her—and giving up the finest career ever opened to a man? If Mrs. Dampier does not reciprocate what you choose to call his 'feeling' for bet, then she is the coldest and most ungrateful of women!"
"I don't think she is either the one or the other," had observed Mr. Stephens mildly; and he had added under his breath, "It would be the better for her if she were—Believe me the only way to force her to consider the expedient I have suggested—" he had hesitated as if rather ashamed of what he was about to say, "would be for Gerald to tell her the search for Mr. Dampier must now end—and that the time has come when he must go back to America—and work."
Small wonder that Senator Burton found it hard to sleep last night, small wonder he has risen so early. He knows that his son is going to speak to Nancy, to tell her what Mr. Stephens has suggested she should do, and he suspects that now, at this very moment, the decisive conversation may be taking place.
II
Though unconscious that anxious, yearning eyes are following them, both Nancy Dampier and Gerald Burton feel an instinctive desire to get away from the house, and as far as may be from possible eavesdroppers. They walk across the stretch of lawn which separates the moat from the gardens in a constrained silence, she following rather than guiding her companion.
But as if this charming old-world plesaunce were quite familiar to him, Gerald goes straight on, down a grass path ending in what appears to be a high impenetrable wall of yew, and Nancy, surprised, then sees that a narrow, shaft-like way leads straight through the green leafy depths.