“Humph!” Mr. Carter glared over the top of William’s letter at his wife. “William didn’t happen to carry his birth certificate hung around his neck, did he?”
Mrs. Carter shook her head, her eyes fixed on Emily. For the first time she felt it was to be her portion to hear wisdom from the mouths of babes and sucklings.
“Emmy, are you sure you read all that?” she inquired anxiously.
“Of course she did, mother,” said Daniel, speaking for the first time, his low, deep voice breaking in on the shrill excitement of the family clamor. “It’s French law.”
That settled it. Daniel had studied law in old Judge Jessup’s office, and there was nothing in law, domestic and international, that Judge Jessup didn’t know. Mr. Carter turned his distorted countenance upon his second son.
“Is that really a fact, Dan?”
Dan nodded. He was not eating. He had thrust aside an almost untouched breakfast. The hand that he stretched out now for a glass of water was a little unsteady, but his father did not notice it. Mr. Carter was scowling at the letter again.
“It’s as plain as day here, he’s known her less than three months. Take three weeks for the banns out of that, and you get seven or eight weeks. The young donkey! Where were her people, I’d like to know?”
Mrs. Carter gasped. Horrible thoughts had been assailing her from the first, and she could no longer suppress them.
“D-do you think she can be respectable?” she quavered tearfully.