Dick Bracknell’s reply to the question was an inarticulate one, and afterwards for a little time he stared into the fire with eyes that looked almost ferocious. Then he asked abruptly, “How do you know all this?”
“As I explained, I am the representative of the firm of Sir Joseph Rayner and Son, and I have been sent out to find the girl wife——”
“To find J—er—the girl?”
“Yes! she left England very suddenly a few weeks ago without informing Sir Joseph. She, as we have ascertained, came to the Dominion, and my principal suspecting that she was going to marry the man I have mentioned, sent me to intervene. Two courses are open for me to follow, either to find the young lady, and explain to the former that in the absence of proof of her husband’s death such a marriage is of more than doubtful legality; or to find the policeman and point out that the young lady is already a wife.”
“But he—but what if he already knows?”
“Then in that case I shall be called upon to explain the law to him also! But so far I have accomplished none of these things. The policeman, as I learned at Regina, is missing; and when I arrived there the young lady had already left her home up here for an unknown destination.... I do not know, of course, but I have my suspicions as to who may be awaiting her at that destination.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, sir, you appear to be a man of education, and you will remember that the great Antony thought the world well lost for love, and what Cleopatra thought, her actions proved. Human nature does not change, and love is the strongest passion it knows, and I suspect that her lover being missing, the young lady has gone to look for him, or if not that to meet him at some appointed rendezvous. The two are young, between them they will be fabulously rich and they will not be the first pair of lovers to set the world and the world’s conventions at defiance. At least they will be able to afford it!”
“Never! by—— never!”