"And when did it occur?"
"Really, Mr. Dunwoodie, I can't see why you are putting me through this
examination, but if it is of any benefit to you, it happened just five
days before he died."
"Anybody about?"
"Oh, yes. There were two other servants who enjoyed it very much. I
heard them laughing and I don't blame them. It was a rare treat. A child
would have laughed at it. All my fault too. I behaved like a ninny. But
my great mistake was in telling my father. I would give the world if I
had not. Won't you please send for Mr. Jones? As I told you, I don't
know why I am here."
Dunwoodie shook out the towel. "You must blame him then. He said you
were Paliser's widow."
"Well, you see I am not."
"Yet you consented to be his wife."
"Whose? Mr. Jones'?"
"Paliser's, my dear young lady. However fictitious the ceremony, you
consented to be Paliser's wife."
"What if I did? It has nothing to do with it now."
"Just a little, perhaps. Did you hear Jones say that he would renew his
acquaintance with Swinburne?"
"From the way he talks, one might think he knew him by heart."
"Yaas, he is very objectionable. But you are referring to the poet. He
was referring to the jurist. The jurist wrote a very fine book. Let me
quote a passage from it. 'It is the present and perfect consent the
which alone maketh matrimony, without either solemnisation or'--here,
Dunwoodie, skipping the frank old English, substituted--'or anything
else, for neither the one nor the other is the essence of matrimony, but
consent only. Consensus non concubitus facit matrimoniam.' Hum! Ha! In
other words, whether marriage is or is not contracted in facie ecclesiae,
it is consent alone that constitutes its validity. You understand
Latin?"