Ten thousand a year self-dedicated to him--and nothing to prevent his putting out his hand and taking it but the woman who had caught him in her trap, the woman up stairs who had fastened herself on him for life!
He put the letter into his pocket. "Wait till I hear from the lawyer," he said to himself. "The easiest way out of it is that way. And it's the law."
He looked impatiently at his watch. As he put it back again in his pocket there was a ring at the bell. Was it the lad bringing the luggage? Yes. And, with it, the lawyer's report? No. Better than that--the lawyer himself.
"Come in!" cried Geoffrey, meeting his visitor at the door.
The lawyer entered the dining-room. The candle-light revealed to view a corpulent, full-lipped, bright-eyed man--with a strain of negro blood in his yellow face, and with unmistakable traces in his look and manner of walking habitually in the dirtiest professional by-ways of the law.
"I've got a little place of my own in your neighborhood," he said. "And I thought I would look in myself, Mr. Delamayn, on my way home."
"Have you seen the witnesses?"
"I have examined them both, Sir. First, Mrs. Inchbare and Mr. Bishopriggs together. Next, Mrs. Inchbare and Mr. Bishopriggs separately."
"Well?"
"Well, Sir, the result is unfavorable, I am sorry to say."
"What do you mean?"
"Neither the one nor the other of them, Mr. Delamayn, can give the evidence we want. I have made sure of that."
"Made sure of that? You have made an infernal mess of it! You don't understand the case!"
The mulatto lawyer smiled. The rudeness of his client appeared only to amuse him.
"Don't I?" he said. "Suppose you tell me where I am wrong about it? Here it is in outline only. On the fourteenth of August last your wife was at an inn in Scotland. A gentleman named Arnold Brinkworth joined her there. He represented himself to be her husband, and he staid with her till the next morning. Starting from those facts, the object you have in view is to sue for a Divorce from your wife. You make Mr. Arnold Brinkworth the co-respondent. And you produce in evidence the waiter and the landlady of the inn. Any thing wrong, Sir, so far?"
Nothing wrong. At one cowardly stroke to cast Anne disgraced on the world, and to set himself free--there, plainly and truly stated, was the scheme which he had devised, when he had turned back on the way to Fulham to consult Mr. Moy.
"So much for the case," resumed the lawyer. "Now for what I have done on receiving your instructions. I have examined the witnesses; and I have had an interview (not a very pleasant one) with Mr. Moy. The result of those two proceedings is briefly this. First discovery: In assuming the character of the lady's husband Mr. Brinkworth was acting under your directions--which tells dead against you. Second discovery: Not the slightest impropriety of conduct, not an approach even to harmless familiarity, was detected by either of the witnesses, while the lady and gentleman were together at the inn. There is literally no evidence to produce against them, except that they were together--in two rooms. How are you to assume a guilty purpose, when you can't prove an approach to a guilty act? You can no more take such a case as that into Court than you can jump over the roof of this cottage."
He looked hard at his client, expecting to receive a violent reply. His client agreeably disappointed him. A very strange impression appeared to have been produced on th is reckless and headstrong man. He got up quietly; he spoke with perfect outward composure of face and manner when he said his next words.
"Have you given up the case?"
"As things are at present, Mr. Delamayn, there is no case."
"And no hope of my getting divorced from her?"
"Wait a moment. Have your wife and Mr. Brinkworth met nowhere since they were together at the Scotch inn?"
"Nowhere."
"As to the future, of course I can't say. As to the past, there is no hope of your getting divorced from her."
"Thank you. Good-night."
"Good-night, Mr. Delamayn."
Fastened to her for life--and the law powerless to cut the knot.
He pondered over that result until he had thoroughly realized it and fixed it in his mind. Then he took out Mrs. Glenarm's letter, and read it through again, attentively, from beginning to end.
Nothing could shake her devotion to him. Nothing would induce her to marry another man. There she was--in her own words--dedicated to him: waiting, with her fortune at her own disposal, to be his wife. There also was his father, waiting (so far as he knew, in the absence of any tidings from Holchester House) to welcome Mrs. Glenarm as a daughter-in-law, and to give Mrs. Glenarm's husband an income of his own. As fair a prospect, on all sides, as man could desire. And nothing in the way of it but the woman who had caught him in her trap--the woman up stairs who had fastened herself on him for life.
He went out in the garden in the darkness of the night.
There was open communication, on all sides, between the back garden and the front. He walked round and round the cottage--now appearing in a stream of light from a window; now disappearing again in the darkness. The wind blew refreshingly over his bare head. For some minutes he went round and round, faster and faster, without a pause. When he stopped at last, it was in front of the cottage. He lifted his head slowly, and looked up at the dim light in the window of Anne's room.
"How?" he said to himself. "That's the question. How?"
He went indoors again, and rang the bell. The servant-girl who answered it started back at the sight of him. His florid color was all gone. His eyes looked at her without appearing to see her. The perspiration was standing on his forehead in great heavy drops.
"Are you ill, Sir?" said the girl.
He told her, with an oath, to hold her tongue and bring the brandy. When she entered the room for the second time, he was standing with his back to her, looking out at the night. He never moved when she put the bottle on the table. She heard him muttering as if he was talking to himself.
The same difficulty which had been present to his mind in secret under Anne's window was present to his mind still.
How? That was the problem to solve. How?
He turned to the brandy, and took counsel of that.
CHAPTER THE FIFTIETH.
THE MORNING.
WHEN does the vain regret find its keenest sting? When is the doubtful future blackened by its darkest cloud? When is life least worth having. and death oftenest at the bedside? In the terrible morning hours, when the sun is rising in its glory, and the birds are singing in the stillness of the new-born day.
Anne woke in the strange bed, and looked round her, by the light of the new morning, at the strange room.
The rain had all fallen in the night. The sun was master in the clear autumn sky. She rose, and opened the window. The fresh morning air, keen and fragrant, filled the room. Far and near, the same bright stillness possessed the view. She stood at the window looking out. Her mind was clear again--she could think, she could feel; she could face the one last question which the merciless morning now forced on her--How will it end?
Was there any hope?--hope for instance, in what she might do for herself. What can a married woman do for herself? She can make her misery public--provided it be misery of a certain kind--and can reckon single-handed with Society when she has done it. Nothing more.
Was there hope in what others might do for her? Blanche might write to her--might even come and see her--if her husband allowed it; and that was all. Sir Patrick had pressed her hand at parting, and had told her to rely on him. He was the firmest, the truest of friends. But what could he do? There were outrages which her husband was privileged to commit, under the sanction of marriage, at the bare thought of which her blood ran cold. Could Sir Patrick protect her? Absurd! Law and Society armed her husband with his conjugal rights. Law and Society had but one answer to give, if she appealed to them--You are his wife.