‘No, no, Emily, no, no——’
‘When it is, perhaps, such a case as never occurred before,’ she said. ‘I can answer these men formally to their questions, but to him I should have to go into the whole matter, explaining everything from the first step to the last. No, I will not ask Mr. Perowne for his opinion,’ she said. Her countenance, naturally so soft in colour, was suffused with a sudden flush. ‘Anything but that,’ she repeated, in almost an angry tone.
It is so difficult to be purely business-like in matters where men and women are concerned. Mr. Perowne, the ‘man of business’ employed by the old Rector of Watcham, the father of Emily Plowden—had taken upon him to admire that young lady, and to make certain overtures which were not received graciously in the days that were gone. Lady William would rather have died than disclose all the circumstances of her marriage, as well as the possible doubt that might be thrown upon it, to her former lover. It was no figure of speech to say this; she would rather have died. But to her brother it all seemed very foolish, and to show an arrogant confidence in her own judgment which he did not share.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘of course, it is your own business, and I cannot interfere with you, Emily: but that lawyer should meet lawyer is surely a much better way than that you should think you could encounter Messrs. Fox and Round—who are, of course, experienced in all sorts of villainy—in your own strength.’
‘It is a mere simple statement of fact that has to be made to them,’ she said. ‘I will write and say I have no certificates, but that one person is still alive who was present at my marriage if she can be found: and that my father——’
‘For goodness’ sake!’ cried the Rector. ‘What, what do you mean—you are going to show your hand at once to these men, and let them see that you have no proof at all?’
‘My father’s diary is the best of evidence,’ she said. ‘The law is not such a bugbear as you make it out to be. There must be some sense and justice in it: my father’s word, a clergyman, and a man of honour——’
‘They may say it is a got-up thing, and what so easy as for me to write that entry in an old book? I write very like my father.’
‘What folly, James! You! as little likely to cheat as my father, a clergyman, and a man of honour too!’
‘We might say,’ said the Rector, ‘for I have been thinking it over too, my dear Emily—that you were married at St. Alban’s Proprietary Chapel, Backwood Street, Marylebone, on such a day and year, by the incumbent, the Reverend T. I. Gepps: and leave it to them to got a copy of the register for themselves—if they can,’ he added grimly. ‘The books, of course, ought to have been saved, and perhaps some of them may be. It is their business to find all that out.’