Roger turned his sightless eyes in the direction of Lady Vale, his fine face aglow with indignation. “Madam,” he said slowly, “we may have incurred your displeasure, but we are not deserving of such bitter anger as you have shown. For myself I do not care. I shall endeavor to bear up against God’s wrath, which you seem to think will be so plentifully showered upon us; but my wife, by right of law, I am bound to honor and protect, you have used words toward her this day which I, for one, shall be slow to forget. In all courtesy to you as my mother’s guest, I cannot turn you from her house, but Victoria is mine. No earthly power can take her from me, and I advise you not to try it.”
At this moment Mary appeared at the door followed by two servants. “What has happened?” she cried, as she saw the agitated face of her son, with Victoria’s senseless form in his arms.
“Mother, I wish the servants to take Victoria to my apartments. I will explain matters when we are alone.”
Lady Vale turned suddenly toward Mary. “Did you have a hand in this scheme to rob me of my daughter, Mrs. Mary Willing?”
Mary started at the unwonted usage of her full name by one who had never called her anything but “Mary.” “I was present at the marriage of Victoria and my son. It was no scheme, and nobody has tried to rob you of your daughter.”
“You have said enough,” returned Lady Vale, shrugging her shoulders. “I have lost a friend as well as a daughter,” and with these words she passed into an adjoining room, closing the door after her.
Mary stood completely unnerved gazing at the closed door, while the servants who were supposed to be without eyes or ears at such times, tenderly lifted Victoria and bore her to Roger’s apartments. “Are you here, mother?” he asked. Mary roused herself from the semi-stupor which seemed to have taken possession of her. “Yes, my son.”
“Then give me your arm, and while we are walking through the halls I will tell you of Lady Vale’s unjust anger.”
Mary felt saddened at what Roger told her, and as she helped to restore Victoria to sensibility, she wondered if Lady Vale had ever possessed a heart, for to one of Mary’s gentle nature, the course which Victoria’s mother had taken, seemed cruel in the extreme; and when she witnessed Victoria’s grief, which even Roger’s loving words and caresses could not assuage, she went herself to plead her new daughter’s cause with the incensed mother; but Lady Vale’s door was barred against all intruders, and Rachel, with a dignity born of the quarrel between her superiors, told Mary that her mistress would see no one, and that in two hours she would be en route for New York. Lady Vale wished to leave the house as a stranger. With these words Rachel closed the door in Mary’s face, who walked sadly away. Ere she reached her room she met Andrew, who seemed much agitated. As he caught sight of his mother his dark face became more sullen and sinister, and he said as he grasped her arm: “What is this that I hear the servants gossipping over and commenting upon? Is it true that Victoria has married Roger, and that you and the coachman were the only witnesses of the ceremony?” Mary trembled, for so she had seen her husband many times when in a fury. “Speak, woman!”
Mary raised her eyes. “Woman!” she echoed. “Is it thus that you address your mother, Andrew?”