Only a few of the gentlemen returned with him to the house. Two of them were the husbands of the two ladies who had been with Lily, and who now, with each a volume in her face, joined the surprised and curious men. Lily, too, had come back to the room. It was now that she had intended to make her statement, and it had become unnecessary. She was saved something, and yet there was worse before her than if this had not been saved.
“There is no explanation we are not ready to give,” said Ronald calmly. “We were married four years ago, in the Manse of Kinloch-Rugas, by Mr. Douglas’s predecessor, dead, I am sorry to hear, the other day. My wife has the lines, which she will give you. Two witnesses of the marriage are in the house. Every thing is in perfect order and ready for any examination. The reason of the secrecy we were obliged to keep up was the objection of Sir Robert, whom we have just laid with every respect in his grave.”
“With every respect!” Mr. Wallace said with emphasis, and there was a murmur of agreement from the company round.
“These are my words—with every respect. One may respect a man and yet fail to sacrifice one’s own happiness entirely to him. My wife and I were in accord as to saving Sir Robert any thing that might vex him in his old age.”
Here Lily raised her head as if about to speak, but said nothing by a second thought, or perhaps by inability to utter any thing in the midst of the flow of his address.
“It is unnecessary to say what it has cost us to keep up this, but we have done it at every risk. Our duty now is changed, and it is as necessary to make our position clearly understood as it was before to keep it private to ourselves. I would not allow Mrs. Lumsden to take this avowal upon herself, as I am sure she would have done had I not been here, or to encounter the fatigue of the day alone. I have preferred to look like an intruder, as I fear some of the gentlemen here must have thought me.”
“No intruder,” said one. “No, no, to be sure, no intruder,” said another. “Not,” said a third, “if this extraordinary story is true.”
“That’s the whole question,” said Mr. Wallace. “My client knew nothing of it. He left his money to his niece as to a single woman. The lady has always been known as Miss Ramsay. How are we to know it is true?”
“You know me, however,” said Ronald, with a smile: “Ronald Lumsden, advocate, son of John, of that name, of Pontalloch. I think I have taken fees from you before now, Mr. Wallace. It is not very likely I should tell you such a lie as that in the lady’s face.”
“Miss Ramsay,” said Mr. Wallace—“Lord! if I knew what to call the lady!—madam, is this true?”