A sob of pain burst from the beautiful woman's lips and interrupted her narrative at this point.
But she recovered herself almost immediately, and resumed:
"A year or two after I was left alone I happened to meet your former friend, Will Forsyth, and from him learned that I had always been your legal wife, and that he had sent you proofs of the fact, about a year after your desertion of me.
"This astonishing intelligence animated me with a new purpose, and I resolved that I would seek the world over for you, and demand that proof from you.
"I returned immediately to this country and established myself in New York, where, Mr. Forsyth told me, he thought you were residing. Soon after my arrival I learned, to my dismay, that Mr. Allandale had recently died, leaving his family in a destitute condition. This knowledge changed my plans somewhat; I gave up my quest for you, for the time, and began to search for my old friend who, for eighteen years, had been a mother to my child. I had no intention of interrupting the relations between them—my only thought was to provide for their future in a way to preclude the possibility of their ever knowing the meaning of the word poverty. But my utmost efforts proved unavailing—I could learn nothing of them; but I finally did get trace of you, and two months ago came on to Boston, determined to face you and compel you to surrender to me the certificate of our marriage."
"Ha! did you expect that I would yield to you?" questioned Gerald Goddard, a note of defiance in his voice.
"Certainly—I knew I could compel you to do so."
"Indeed? You were sanguine! By what arguments did you expect to achieve your desire? How could you even prove that I had such a paper?"
"I do not know that I could have proven that you possessed the certificate," quietly responded Mrs. Stewart; "but I could at least prove that such a paper once existed, for Mr. Forsyth assured me that, if I needed assistance to establish the fact of my marriage he would be ready to give it at any time. I did not think I should need to call upon him, however; I reasoned that, rather than submit to an arrest and scandal, for—bigamy, you would quietly surrender the certificate to me."
Gerald Goddard shivered at the sound of those three ugly words, while the listener, behind the draperies, clinched her hands and locked her teeth to keep herself from shrieking aloud in her agony, and thus revealing her presence.