"Isabel! you are merciless!" cried the man, writhing under her scorn. "But since you have learned so much, I may as well tell you everything. Of course Anna was furious when she discovered that she was no wife, for I had sworn to her that there was no legal tie between you and me—"
"Ah! then she also learned the truth!" interposed his companion. "I almost wonder you did not try to keep the knowledge from her."
"I could not—she was present when the document arrived, and the shock to me was so great I betrayed it, and she insisted upon knowing what had caused it, when she raved like an insane person, for a time."
"But I suppose you packed her by being married over again, since you have lived with her for nearly twenty years," remarked Mrs. Stewart.
"No, I did not," returned her visitor, hotly. "To tell the truth, I had begun to tire of her even then—she was so furiously jealous, passionate, and unreasonable upon the slightest pretext that at times she made life wretched for me. So I told myself that so long as I held that certificate as proof that she had no legal hold upon me, I should have it in my power to manage her and cow her into submission when she became ungovernable by other means. I represented to her that, to all intents and purposes, we were man and wife, and if we should have the ceremony repeated, after having lived together so long, it would create a scandal, for some one would be sure to find it out, sooner or later. For a time this appeared to pacify her; but one day, during my absence from home, she stole the certificate, although I thought I had concealed it where no one would think of looking for it. It has been in her possession ever since. I have tried many times to recover it; but she was more clever than I, and I never could find it, while she has always told me that she would never relinquish it, except upon one condition—"
"And that was—what?"
"Ever the same old demand—that I would make her legally my wife."
"But she never could have been that so long as I lived," objected Mrs. Stewart.
"True; but she would have been satisfied with a repetition of the ceremony, as we did not know that you were living."
"If you have been so unhappy, why have you lived with her all these years?"