‘As regards Lady Monson, do you mean?’
‘Well, she is still your wife, and what concerns her concerns you, I suppose, more or less.’
‘I shall not meddle with her,’ said he, making a horrible grimace to an involuntary twitch of his gouty foot; ‘she can do what she pleases.’
‘She talks of returning to Australia.’
‘Let her go,’ said he.
And this, thought I, is the issue of your wild pursuit of her! Had he but waited a few months, disgust and aversion would have grown strong in him. He would have been guiltless of shedding the blood of a fellow-creature—he would have preserved his noble yacht—but then, to be sure, I should probably never have met Laura!
His eye was upon me while I mused a little in silence.
‘My solicitors advise proceedings in the Divorce Court,’ said he, ‘but I say no. I certainly should never try my hand at marriage again, and therefore a divorce would serve no end of my own. But it might answer her purpose very well indeed; it would free her, and I do not intend that she shall have her liberty.’
‘You will have to maintain her.’
‘Oh, my solicitors will see to that,’ he answered with a curious smile.