“Come, now, Agnes, this is foolish. Why not be friendly? It is best for you to be so. I have seen you with the boy. He is mine, and I can claim him, you know.”
“No, sir! you cannot do that.”
“You think I cannot? Pray, why? You are my wife, and he is my son.”
“He is your son, but I am not your wife,” she says, in a firm tone.
“Not my wife! But you were married to me. Oh! shame, Agnes! I did not expect that you, who insisted on the tying of that knot, would be the one to untie it. In what position does it place you and the boy if you are not my wife? I suppose you have considered that, and you must have advanced somewhat in your ideas to be so independent now of public opinion.”
Her face is very pale, and her lips have been firmly set. There is a cold, stern light in her eyes as she answers: “I was never your wife. You were not free to marry me, even if I had been free to marry you. You were never divorced from your wife, so you can have no claim on me.”
He looks astonished, and for a moment cringes just a little as she says this. But he rallies, and says, “That will not matter now, my wife is dead; do you know that?”
“Yes.”
“You do? Why, how do you know so much, when I only know that bare fact? Pray, can you tell me anything more?”
His tone is half satirical, half beseeching. He really wishes to know more than the meagre information which he has gleaned from the neighbors of the house where Margaret died—that a Mrs. Vanderlyn was buried from that house. The landlady has gone they know not where. They remember the funeral, that is all. He is anxious to know what has become of Margaret’s money. He thinks the priests have it; but he is not sure of this, however, for one person has told him that a relative who was nurse for the Catholic lady at the last inherited all her money. It has puzzled him very much to guess who this person could have been. He has not succeeded in finding any record of Margaret’s will. F. Francis and Mrs. Vanderlyn had thought it wiser not to have it recorded, considering Agnes’ peculiar relation to Vanderlyn, who might yet return to dispute the possession of the money with her, or to trouble her. Now that Agnes seems to know something of his wife, it occurs to him that she may possibly be that relative who inherited the money. Knowing the disposition of each of these women as he does—the one for nursing the sick, the other generous and forgiving—he sees that, if they met at all, this might have been the consequence. Remarkable quickness of deduction and conclusion he has always possessed, and it serves him now, and makes him more determined in his designs upon Agnes; but he is desirous of playing his game adroitly. She, on her part, wishes to shorten the interview, and be rid of him.