"There is nothing more to say. How far other people are involved with your husband, I cannot tell. I am going now into the City to find out if I can. Your wild words, Mrs. Cassilis, and your unguarded conduct, have brought about misfortunes on which you little calculated. But I am not here to reproach you."
"You are my husband's man of business, I suppose," she replied coldly—"a paid servant of his. What you say has no importance, nor what you think. What did Lawrence bid you tell me?"
Joseph Jagenal's face clouded for a moment. But what was the good of feeling resentment with such a woman, and in such a miserable business?
"You have two courses open to you," he went on. "You may, by repeating the confession you made in the hearing of Mr. Cassilis, draw upon yourself such punishment as the Law, provided the confession be true, can inflict. That will be a grievous thing to you. It will drive you out of society, and brand you as a criminal; it will lock you up for two years in prison; it will leave a stigma never to be forgotten or obliterated; it means ruin far, far worse than what you have brought on Mr. Cassilis. On the other hand, you may keep silence. This at least will secure the legitimacy of your boy, and will keep for you the amount settled on you at your marriage. But you may choose. If the statement you made is true, of course I can be no party to compounding a felony——"
"And Lawrence?" she interposed. "What does Lawrence say?"
"In any case Mr. Colquhoun will leave England at once."
"He will marry that Phillis girl? You may tell him," she hissed out, "that I will do anything and suffer anything rather than consent to his marrying her, or any one else."
"Mr. Colquhoun informs me further," pursued the crafty lawyer, "that, for some reason only known to himself, he will never marry during the life of a certain person. Phillis Fleming will probably marry the Honourable Mr. Ronald Dunquerque."
She buried her head in her hands, not to hide any emotion, for there was none to hide, but to think. Presently she rose, and said, "Take me to—my husband, if you please."
Joseph Jagenal, as a lawyer, is tolerably well versed in such wickedness and deceptions as the human heart is capable of. At the same time, he acknowledges to himself that the speech made by Victoria Cassilis to her husband, and the manner in which it was delivered, surpassed anything he had ever experienced or conceived.