“Everything, my lord is real. You hold in your hands the certificate of marriage and the register. Not copies—the actual documents. Before you read the papers and learn the lady’s name, tell her, in my hearing, that you forgive her. She bids me tell you, for her, that since she learned the thing that she had done, what it meant, and whose happiness it threatened, she has had no happy day.”
“Forgiveness!” said my lord, in a voice strangely moved, while his eyes softened. “Forgiveness, madam, is a poor word to express what I feel in return for this most generous deed. It is a thing for which I can find no word sufficient to let you know how great is my gratitude. Learn, madam, that my heart is bestowed upon a woman whose perfections, to my mind, are such that no man is worthy of her; but she hath graciously been pleased to accept, and even to return my affection. Now by this act, because I cannot think that we are bound together in the eyes of the Church by that form of marriage service——”
“It is a question,” said the Doctor, “which it would task the learning of the whole country to decide. By ecclesiastical law—but let us leave this question unconsidered. Nothing need ever be said about the matter. Your lordship is free.”
“Then”—he still held the papers in his hand, and seemed in no way anxious to satisfy his curiosity as to the name of the woman who had caused so much anxiety—“before we part, perhaps never to meet again, may I ask to be allowed to see the face of the lady who has performed this wonderful act of generosity?”
I trembled, but made no answer.
“Stay a moment,” he said. “Remember that you have given up a goodly estate, with a large fortune and an ancient name—things which all women rightly prize. These things you have given away. Do you repent?”
I shook my head.
“Then let me never know”—he tore the papers into a thousand fragments—“let me never know the name of the woman to whom I owe this gift. Let me think of her as of an angel!”
The Doctor took me by the arm as if to lead me away.
“Since you do not want to know her name, my lord, I do not see any reason why you should. Let us go, child.”