“Yes, I’ve heard of him! Go on, man. Your story is very interesting.”
“Fortunately Sir Joseph was not left in ignorance of the marriage, for the girl’s husband wrote and informed him of it. Sir Joseph was astonished; but he kept the news to himself, because the husband, though of good family, had done something that was—er—scarcely creditable. He did not even inform the girl of the information which had reached him, hoping that time would solve what appeared to be a difficult situation.”
“And hasn’t it?”
“No, sir. Time may solve many things, but the policy of laissez-faire, whilst sometimes a good one, is not without its dangers! This happens to be one of the cases where the dangers predominate, and time has but brought a new complication.”
“What is that?” asked Bracknell sharply.
“Well, the girl is thinking of marrying again.”
“God in heaven!” Dick Bracknell had staggered to his feet. His eyes were burning and there was a ghastly pallor on his haggard face. He glared at the narrator as if he could slay him. “Man, do you know what you are saying?”
“Yes,” answered Rayner, with well-affected surprise. “I am saying that in her inexperience this girl-wife is thinking of contracting a flesh marriage, one in which her heart is engaged, as it appears not to have been in the first. Of course she may not understand the law as it relates to bigamy, or she may believe that her husband is dead——”
“Who is the man?” asked Bracknell, in a strangled voice.
“The man? I do not understand. Do you mean the husband?”