"Ah!" he said, bitterly, "at last I have driven her from my side, even her patient spirit is at length roused. Margaret."
"Yes," she answered, in a constrained voice.
"You are condemning me also."
She could not speak.
The times without number that she had seen him violent and abusive to poor Mrs. Dorriman, the cruel sting that being at his mercy had always been to the poor woman, the imposture, everything bewildered and shocked her.
Mr. Stevens went back, Christie still leaned against the door like a statue.
"How your fraud was successful, I cannot understand," he said, curtly.
"Who was there to ask any questions? Who was to know what had passed?" asked Mr. Sandford; "I had nothing to prove. The result of my father's deception was to make all easy. As I had lived with him, been accepted as his legitimate son during his lifetime, during the time when he might have spoken, why should I not be accepted as his legitimate son when speech was denied him? There were no papers to prove or disprove anything, I was asked to produce no baptismal certificate, and no one thought of questioning me about my mother's marriage certificate.
"But now you know all, take what steps you like to proclaim me to the world an impostor—what signifies it to me? No one can deny me the six feet of earth which is all I shall want directly."
"Sir," said Christie, "when you sold the place was it for fear of a judgment if you lived in it?"