the proceedings as representing an informal inquiry. An informal
proposal--with submission to _your_ better judgment, Mr. Moy--is hardly
out of place, under those circumstances, is it?”
Mr. Moy’s inexhaustible modesty gave way, without a struggle. The answer
which he received had the effect of puzzling him at the outset of the
investigation. A man of Sir Patrick’s experience must have known that
Arnold’s mere assertion of his own innocence could be productive of
nothing but useless delay in the proceedings. And yet he sanctioned that
delay. Was he privately on the watch for any accidental circumstance
which might help him to better a case that he knew to be a bad one?
Permitted to speak, Arnold spoke. The unmistakable accent of truth was
in every word that he uttered. He gave a fairly coherent account of
events, from the time when Geoffrey had claimed his assistance at the
lawn-party to the time when he found himself at the door of the inn
at Craig Fernie. There Sir Patrick interfered, and closed his lips. He
asked leave to appeal to Geoffrey to confirm him. Sir Patrick amazed
Mr. Moy by sanctioning this irregularity also. Arnold sternly addressed
himself to Geoffrey.
“Do you deny that what I have said is true?” he asked.
Mr. Moy did his duty by his client. “You are not bound to answer,” he
said, “unless you wish it yourself.”
Geoffrey slowly lifted his heavy head, and confronted the man whom he
had betrayed.
“I deny every word of it,” he answered--with a stolid defiance of tone
and manner.
“Have we had enough of assertion and counter-assertion, Sir Patrick, by
this time?” asked Mr. Moy, with undiminished politeness.
After first forcing Arnold--with some little difficulty--to control
himself, Sir Patrick raised Mr. Moy’s astonishment to the culminating
point. For reasons of his own, he determined to strengthen the favorable
impression which Arnold’s statement had plainly produced on his wife
before the inquiry proceeded a step farther.
“I must throw myself on your indulgence, Mr. Moy,” he said. “I have not
had enough of assertion and counter-assertion, even yet.”
Mr. Moy leaned back in his chair, with a mixed expression of
bewilderment and resignation. Either his colleague’s intellect was in a
failing state--or his colleague had some purpose in view which had not
openly asserted itself yet. He began to suspect that the right reading
of the riddle was involved in the latter of those two alternatives.
Instead of entering any fresh protest, he wisely waited and watched.
Sir Patrick went on unblushingly from one irregularity to another.
“I request Mr. Moy’s permission to revert to the alleged marriage, on
the fourteenth of August, at Craig Fernie,” he said. “Arnold Brinkworth!
answer for yourself, in the presence of the persons here assembled. In
all that you said, and all that you did, while you were at the inn, were
you not solely influenced by the wish to make Miss Silvester’s position
as little painful to her as possible, and by anxiety to carry out the
instructions given to you by Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn? Is that the whole
truth?”
“That is the whole truth, Sir Patrick.”
“On the day when you went to Craig Fernie, had you not, a few hours
previously, applied for my permission to marry my niece?”
“I applied for your permission, Sir Patrick; and you gave it me.”
“From the moment when you entered the inn to the moment when you left
it, were you absolutely innocent of the slightest intention to marry
Miss Silvester?”
“No such thing as the thought of marrying Miss Silvester ever entered my
head.”
“And this you say, on your word of honor as a gentleman?”
“On my word of honor as a gentleman.”
Sir Patrick turned to Anne.
“Was it a matter of necessity, Miss Silvester, that you should appear
in the assumed character of a married woman--on the fourteenth of August
last, at the Craig Fernie inn?”
Anne looked away from Blanche for the first time. She replied to Sir
Patrick quietly, readily, firmly--Blanche looking at her, and listening
to her with eager interest.
“I went to the inn alone, Sir Patrick. The landlady refused, in the
plainest terms, to let me stay there, unless she was first satisfied
that I was a married woman.”
“Which of the two gentlemen did you expect to join you at the inn--Mr.
Arnold Brinkworth, or Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn?”
“Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn.”
“When Mr. Arnold Brinkworth came in his place and said what was
necessary to satisfy the scruples of the landlady, you understood that
he was acting in your interests, from motives of kindness only, and
under the instructions of Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn?”
“I understood that; and I objected as strongly as I could to Mr.
Brinkworth placing himself in a false position on my account.”
“Did your objection proceed from any knowledge of the Scottish law of
marriage, and of the position in which the peculiarities of that law
might place Mr. Brinkworth?”
“I had no knowledge of the Scottish law. I had a vague dislike and dread
of the deception which Mr. Brinkworth was practicing on the people
of the inn. And I feared that it might lead to some possible
misinterpretation of me on the part of a person whom I dearly loved.”
“That person being my niece?”
“Yes.”
“You appealed to Mr. Brinkworth (knowing of his attachment to my niece),
in her name, and for her sake, to leave you to shift for yourself?”
“I did.”
“As a gentleman who had given his promise to help and protect a lady,
in the absence of the person whom she had depended on to join her, he
refused to leave you to shift by yourself?”
“Unhappily, he refused on that account.”
“From first to last, you were absolutely innocent of the slightest
intention to marry Mr. Brinkworth?”
“I answer, Sir Patrick, as Mr. Brinkworth has answered. No such thing as
the thought of marrying him ever entered my head.”
“And this you say, on your oath as a Christian woman?”
“On my oath as a Christian woman.”
Sir Patrick looked round at Blanche. Her face was hidden in her hands.
Her step-mother was vainly appealing to her to compose herself.
In the moment of silence that followed, Mr. Moy interfered in the
interests of his client.
“I waive my claim, Sir Patrick, to put any questions on my side. I
merely desire to remind you, and to remind the company present, that all
that we have just heard is mere assertion--on the part of two persons
strongly interested in extricating themselves from a position which
fatally compromises them both. The marriage which they deny I am
now waiting to prove--not by assertion, on my side, but by appeal to
competent witnesses.”
After a brief consultation with her own solicitor, Lady Lundie followed
Mr. Moy, in stronger language still.
“I wish you to understand, Sir Patrick, before you proceed any farther,
that I shall remove my step-daughter from the room if any more attempts
are made to harrow her feelings and mislead her judgment. I want words
to express my sense of this most cruel and unfair way of conducting the
inquiry.”
The London lawyer followed, stating his professional approval of his
client’s view. “As her ladyship’s legal adviser,” he said, “I support
the protest which her ladyship has just made.”
Even Captain Newenden agreed in the general disapproval of Sir Patrick’s
conduct. “Hear, hear!” said the captain, when the lawyer had spoken.
“Quite right. I must say, quite right.”
Apparently impenetrable to all due sense of his position, Sir Patrick
addressed himself to Mr. Moy, as if nothing had happened.
“Do you wish to produce your witnesses at once?” he asked. “I have not
the least objection to meet your views--on the understanding that I am
permitted to return to the proceedings as interrupted at this point.”
Mr. Moy considered. The adversary (there could be no doubt of it by this
time) had something in reserve--and the adversary had not yet shown his
hand. It was more immediately important to lead him into doing this than
to insist on rights and privileges of the purely formal sort. Nothing
could shake the strength of the position which Mr. Moy occupied. The
longer Sir Patrick’s irregularities delayed the proceedings, the more
irresistibly the plain facts of the case would assert themselves--with
all the force of contrast--out of the mouths of the witnesses who were
in attendance down stairs. He determined to wait.
“Reserving my right of objection, Sir Patrick,” he answered, “I beg you
to go on.”
To the surprise of every body, Sir Patrick addressed himself directly
to Blanche--quoting the language in which Lady Lundie had spoken to him,
with perfect composure of tone and manner.
“You know me well enough, my dear,” he said, “to be assured that I
am incapable of willingly harrowing your feelings or misleading your
judgment. I have a question to ask you, which you can answer or not,
entirely as you please.”
Before he could put the question there was a momentary contest between
Lady Lundie and her legal adviser. Silencing her ladyship (not without
difficulty), the London lawyer interposed. He also begged leave to
reserve the right of objection, so far as _his_ client was concerned.
Sir Patrick assented by a sign, and proceeded to put his question to
Blanche.
“You have heard what Arnold Brinkworth has said, and what Miss Silvester
has said,” he resumed. “The husband who loves you, and the sisterly
friend who loves you, have each made a solemn declaration. Recall your
past experience of both of them; remember what they have just said; and
now tell me--do you believe they have spoken falsely?”
Blanche answered on the instant.
“I believe, uncle, they have spoken the truth!”
Both the lawyers registered their objections. Lady Lundie made another
attempt to speak, and was stopped once more--this time by Mr. Moy as
well as by her own adviser. Sir Patrick went on.
“Do you feel any doubt as to the entire propriety of your husband’s
conduct and your friend’s conduct, now you have seen them and heard
them, face to face?”
Blanche answered again, with the same absence of reserve.
“I ask them to forgive me,” she said. “I believe I have done them both a
great wrong.”
She looked at her husband first--then at Anne. Arnold attempted to leave
his chair. Sir Patrick firmly restrained him. “Wait!” he whispered. “You
don’t know what is coming.” Having said that, he turned toward Anne.
Blanche’s look had gone to the heart of the faithful woman who loved
her. Anne’s face was turned away--the tears were forcing themselves
through the worn weak hands that tried vainly to hide them.
The formal objections of the lawyers were registered once more. Sir
Patrick addressed himself to his niece for the last time.
“You believe what Arnold Brinkworth has said; you believe what Miss
Silvester has said. You know that not even the thought of marriage was
in the mind of either of them, at the inn. You know--whatever else may
happen in the future--that there is not the most remote possibility of
either of them consenting to acknowledge that they ever have been, or
ever can be, Man and Wife. Is that enough for you? Are you willing,
before this inquiry proceeds any farther to take your husband’s hand;
to return to your husband’s protection; and to leave the rest to
me--satisfied with my assurance that, on the facts as they happened, not
even the Scotch Law can prove the monstrous assertion of the marriage at
Craig Fernie to be true?”
Lady Lundie rose. Both the lawyers rose. Arnold sat lost in
astonishment. Geoffrey himself--brutishly careless thus far of all that
had passed--lifted his head with a sudden start. In the midst of the
profound impression thus produced, Blanche, on whose decision the whole
future course of the inquiry now turned, answered in these words:
“I hope you will not think me ungrateful, uncle. I am sure that Arnold
has not, knowingly, done me any wrong. But I can’t go back to him until
I am first _certain_ that I am his wife.”
Lady Lundie embraced her step-daughter with a sudden outburst of
affection. “My dear child!” exclaimed her ladyship, fervently. “Well
done, my own dear child!”
Sir Patrick’s head dropped on his breast. “Oh, Blanche! Blanche!” Arnold
heard him whisper to himself; “if you only knew what you are forcing me
to!”
Mr. Moy put in his word, on Blanche’s side of the question.
“I must most respectfully express my approval also of the course which
the young lady has taken,” he said. “A more dangerous compromise than
the compromise which we have just heard suggested it is difficult to
imagine. With all deference to Sir Patrick Lundie, his opinion of the
impossibility of proving the marriage at Craig Fernie remains to be
confirmed as the right one. My own professional opinion is opposed
to it. The opinion of another Scottish lawyer (in Glasgow) is, to my
certain knowledge, opposed to it. If the young lady had not acted with
a wisdom and courage which do her honor, she might have lived to see
the day when her reputation would have been destroyed, and her children
declared illegitimate. Who is to say that circumstances may not happen
in the future which may force Mr. Brinkworth or Miss Silvester--one or
the other--to assert the very marriage which they repudiate now? Who is
to say that interested relatives (property being concerned here) may not
in the lapse of years, discover motives of their own for questioning
the asserted marriage in Kent? I acknowledge that I envy the immense
self-confidence which emboldens Sir Patrick to venture, what he is
willing to venture upon his own individual opinion on an undecided point
of law.”
He sat down amidst a murmur of approval, and cast a slyly-expectant look
at his defeated adversary. “If _that_ doesn’t irritate him into showing
his hand,” thought Mr. Moy, “nothing will!”
Sir Patrick slowly raised his head. There was no irritation--there was
only distress in his face--when he spoke next.
“I don’t propose, Mr. Moy, to argue the point with you,” he said,
gently. “I can understand that my conduct must necessarily appear
strange and even blameworthy, not in your eyes only, but in the eyes of
others. My young friend here will tell you” (he looked toward Arnold)
“that the view which you express as to the future peril involved in this
case was once the view in my mind too, and that in what I have done thus
far I have acted in direct contradiction to advice which I myself gave
at no very distant period. Excuse me, if you please, from entering (for
the present at least) into the motive which has influenced me from
the time when I entered this room. My position is one of unexampled
responsibility and of indescribable distress. May I appeal to that
statement to stand as my excuse, if I plead for a last extension of
indulgence toward the last irregularity of which I shall be guilty, in
connection with these proceedings?”
Lady Lundie alone resisted the unaffected and touching dignity with
which those words were spoken.
“We have had enough of irregularity,” she said sternly. “I, for one,
object to more.”
Sir Patrick waited patiently for Mr. Moy’s reply. The Scotch lawyer and
the English lawyer looked at each other--and understood each other. Mr.
Moy answered for both.
“We don’t presume to restrain you, Sir Patrick, by other limits than
those which, as a gentleman, you impose on yourself. Subject,” added
the cautious Scotchman, “to the right of objection which we have already
reserved.”
“Do you object to my speaking to your client?” asked Sir Patrick.
“To Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn?”
“Yes.”
All eyes turned on Geoffrey. He was sitting half asleep, as it
seemed--with his heavy hands hanging listlessly over his knees, and his
chin resting on the hooked handle of his stick.
Looking toward Anne, when Sir Patrick pronounced Geoffrey’s name, Mr.
Moy saw a change in her. She withdrew her hands from her face, and
turned suddenly toward her legal adviser. Was she in the secret of the
carefully concealed object at which his opponent had been aiming from
the first? Mr. Moy decided to put that doubt to the test. He invited
Sir Patrick, by a gesture, to proceed. Sir Patrick addressed himself to
Geoffrey.
“You are seriously interested in this inquiry,” he said; “and you have
taken no part in it yet. Take a part in it now. Look at this lady.”
Geoffrey never moved.
“I’ve seen enough of her already,” he said, brutally.
“You may well be ashamed to look at her,” said Sir Patrick, quietly.
“But you might have acknowledged it in fitter words. Carry your memory
back to the fourteenth of August. Do you deny that you promised to many
Miss Silvester privately at the Craig Fernie inn?”
“I object to that question,” said Mr. Moy. “My client is under no sort
of obligation to answer it.”
Geoffrey’s rising temper--ready to resent any thing--resented his
adviser’s interference. “I shall answer if I like,” he retorted,
insolently. He looked up for a moment at Sir Patrick, without moving his
chin from the hook of his stick. Then he looked down again. “I do deny
it,” he said.
“You deny that you have promised to marry Miss Silvester?”
“Yes.”
“I asked you just now to look at her--”
“And I told you I had seen enough of her already.”
“Look at _me._ In my presence, and in the presence of the other persons
here, do you deny that you owe this lady, by your own solemn engagement,
the reparation of marriage?”
He suddenly lifted his head. His eyes, after resting for an instant only
on Sir Patrick, turned, little by little; and, brightening slowly, fixed
themselves with a hideous, tigerish glare on Anne’s face. “I know what I
owe her,” he said.
The devouring hatred of his look was matched by the ferocious
vindictiveness of his tone, as he spoke those words. It was horrible to
see him; it was horrible to hear him. Mr. Moy said to him, in a whisper,
“Control yourself, or I will throw up your case.”
Without answering--without even listening--he lifted one of his hands,
and looked at it vacantly. He whispered something to himself; and
counted out what he was whispering slowly; in divisions of his own, on
three of his fingers in succession. He fixed his eyes again on Anne with
the same devouring hatred in their look, and spoke (this time directly
addressing himself to her) with the same ferocious vindictiveness in his
tone. “But for you, I should be married to Mrs. Glenarm. But for you,
I should be friends with my father. But for you, I should have won
the race. I know what I owe you.” His loosely hanging hands stealthily
clenched themselves. His head sank again on his broad breast. He said no
more.
Not a soul moved--not a word was spoken. The same common horror held
them all speechless. Anne’s eyes turned once more on Blanche. Anne’s
courage upheld her, even at that moment.
Sir Patrick rose. The strong emotion which he had suppressed thus far,
showed itself plainly in his face--uttered itself plainly in his voice.
“Come into the next room,” he said to Anne. “I must speak to you
instantly!”
Without noticing the astonishment that he caused; without paying
the smallest attention to the remonstrances addressed to him by his
sister-in-law and by the Scotch lawyer, he took Anne by the arm, opened
the folding-doors at one end of the room--entered the room beyond with
her--and closed the doors again.
Lady Lundie appealed to her legal adviser. Blanche rose--advanced a few
steps--and stood in breathless suspense, looking at the folding-doors.
Arnold advanced a step, to speak to his wife. The captain approached Mr.
Moy.
“What does this mean?” he asked.
Mr. Moy answered, in strong agitation on his side.
“It means that I have not been properly instructed. Sir Patrick Lundie
has some evidence in his possession that seriously compromises Mr.
Delamayn’s case. He has shrunk from producing it hitherto--he finds
himself forced to produce it now. How is it,” asked the lawyer, turning
sternly on his client, “that you have left me in the dark?”
“I know nothing about it,” answered Geoffrey, without lifting his head.
Lady Lundie signed to Blanche to stand aside, and advanced toward the
folding-doors. Mr. Moy stopped her.
“I advise your ladyship to be patient. Interference is useless there.”
“Am I not to interfere, Sir, in my own house?”
“Unless I am entirely mistaken, madam, the end of the proceedings
in your house is at hand. You will damage your own interests by
interfering. Let us know what we are about at last. Let the end come.”
Lady Lundie yielded, and returned to her place. They all waited in
silence for the opening of the doors.
Sir Patrick Lundie and Anne Silvester were alone in the room.
He took from the breast-pocket of his coat the sheet of note-paper which
contained Anne’s letter, and Geoffrey’s reply. His hand trembled as he
held it; his voice faltered as he spoke.
“I have done all that can be done,” he said. “I have left nothing
untried, to prevent the necessity of producing this.”
“I feel your kindness gratefully, Sir Patrick. You must produce it now.”
The woman’s calmness presented a strange and touching contrast to
the man’s emotion. There was no shrinking in her face, there was no
unsteadiness in her voice as she answered him. He took her hand. Twice
he attempted to speak; and twice his own agitation overpowered him. He
offered the letter to her in silence.
In silence, on her side, she put the letter away from her, wondering
what he meant.
“Take it back,” he said. “I can’t produce it! I daren’t produce it!
After what my own eyes have seen, after what my own ears have heard,
in the next room--as God is my witness, I daren’t ask you to declare
yourself Geoffrey Delamayn’s wife!”
She answered him in one word.
“Blanche!”
He shook his head impatiently. “Not even in Blanche’s interests! Not
even for Blanche’s sake! If there is any risk, it is a risk I am ready
to run. I hold to my own opinion. I believe my own view to be right. Let
it come to an appeal to the law! I will fight the case, and win it.”
“Are you _sure_ of winning it, Sir Patrick?”
Instead of replying, he pressed the letter on her. “Destroy it,” he
whispered. “And rely on my silence.”
She took the letter from him.
“Destroy it,” he repeated. “They may open the doors. They may come in at
any moment, and see it in your hand.”
“I have something to ask you, Sir Patrick, before I destroy it. Blanche
refuses to go back to her husband, unless she returns with the certain
assurance of being really his wife. If I produce this letter, she may
go back to him to-day. If I declare myself Geoffrey Delamayn’s wife, I
clear Arnold Brinkworth, at once and forever of all suspicion of being
married to me. Can you as certainly and effectually clear him in any
other way? Answer me that, as a man of honor speaking to a woman who
implicitly trusts him!”
She looked him full in the face. His eyes dropped before hers--he made
no reply.
“I am answered,” she said.
With those words, she passed him, and laid her hand on the door.
He checked her. The tears rose in his eyes as he drew her gently back
into the room.
“Why should we wait?” she asked.
“Wait,” he answered, “as a favor to _me._”
She seated herself calmly in the nearest chair, and rested her head on
her hand, thinking.
He bent over her, and roused her, impatiently, almost angrily. The
steady resolution in her face was terrible to him, when he thought of
the man in the next room.
“Take time to consider,” he pleaded. “Don’t be led away by your own
impulse. Don’t act under a false excitement. Nothing binds you to this
dreadful sacrifice of yourself.”