The Law and the Lady

and redder as she went on. 'A grateful woman would have understood that look. Never mind! I won't do it again I overtook your mother-in-law at the gap in the cliff. I followed her—oh, how I feel the disgrace of it now!—I followed her to the station at Broadstairs. She went back by train to Ramsgate. I went back by train to Ramsgate. She walked to her lodgings. I walked to her lodgings. Behind her. Like a dog. Oh, the disgrace of it! Providentially, as I then thought—I don't know what to think of it now—the landlord of the house happened to be a friend of mine, and happened to be at home. We have no secrets from each other where lodgers are concerned. I am in a position to tell you, madam, what your mother-in-law's name really is. She knows nothing about any such person as Mrs. Woodville, for an excellent reason. Her name is not Woodville. Her name (and consequently her son's name) is Macallan—Mrs. Macallan, widow of the late General Macallan. Yes! your husband is not your husband. You are neither maid, wife, nor widow. You are worse than nothing, madam, and you leave my house!'

I stopped her as she opened the door to go out. She had roused my temper by this time. The doubt that she had cast on my marriage was more than mortal resignation could endure.

'Give me Mrs. Macallan's address,' I said.

The landlady's anger receded into the background, and the landlady's astonishment appeared in its place.

'You don't mean to tell me you are going to the old lady herself?' she said.

'Nobody but the old lady can tell me what I want to know,' I answered. 'Your discovery (as you call it) may be enough for you; it is not enough for me. How do we know that Mrs. Macallan may not have been twice married? and that her first husband's name may not have been Woodville?'

The landlady's astonishment subsided in its turn, and the landlady's curiosity succeeded as the ruling influence of the moment. Substantially, as I have already said of her, she was a good-natured woman. Her fits of temper (as is usual with good-natured people) were of the hot and the short-lived sort, easily roused and easily appeased.

'I never thought of that,' she said. 'Look here! if I give you the address, will you promise to tell me all about it when you come back?'

I gave the required promise, and received the address in return.

'No malice,' said the landlady, suddenly resuming all her old familiarity with me.

'No malice,' I answered, with all possible cordiality on my side.

In ten minutes more I was at my mother-in-law's lodgings.

CHAPTER VI. MY OWN DISCOVERY.

FORTUNATELY for me, the landlord did not open the door when I rang. A stupid maid-of-all-work, who never thought of asking me for my name, let me in. Mrs. Macallan was at home, and had no visitors with her. Giving me this information, the maid led the way upstairs, and showed me into the drawing-room without a word of announcement.

My mother-in-law was sitting alone, near a work-table, knitting. The moment I appeared in the doorway she laid aside her work, and, rising, signed to me with a commanding gesture of her hand to let her speak first.

'I know what you have come here for,' she said. 'You have come here to ask questions. Spare yourself, and spare me. I warn you beforehand that I will not answer any questions relating to my son.'

It was firmly, but not harshly said. I spoke firmly in my turn.

'I have not come here, madam, to ask questions about your son,' I answered. 'I have come, if you will excuse me, to ask you a question about yourself.'

She started, and looked at me keenly over her spectacles. I had evidently taken her by surprise.

'What is the question?' she inquired.

'I now know for the first time, madam, that your name is Macallan,' I said. 'Your son has married me under the name of Woodville. The only honorable explanation of this circumstance, so far as I know, is that my husband is your son by a first marriage. The happiness of my life is at stake. Will you kindly consider my position? Will you let me ask you if you have been twice married, and if the name of your first husband was Woodville?'

She considered a little before she replied.

'The question is a perfectly natural one in your position,' she said. 'But I think I had better not answer it.'

'May I ask why?'

'Certainly. If I answered you, I should only lead to other questions, and I should be obliged to decline replying to them. I am sorry to disappoint you. I repeat what I said on the beach—I have no other feeling than a feeling of sympathy toward you. If you had consulted me before your marriage, I should willingly have admitted you to my fullest confidence. It is now too late. You are married. I recommend you to make the best of your position, and to rest satisfied with things as they are.'

'Pardon me, madam,' I remonstrated. 'As things are, I don't know that I am married. All I know, unless you enlighten me, is that your son has married me under a name that is not his own. How can I be sure whether I am or am not his lawful wife?'

'I believe there can be no doubt that you are lawfully my son's wife,' Mrs. Macallan answered. 'At any rate it is easy to take a legal opinion on the subject. If the opinion is that you are not lawfully married, my son (whatever his faults and failings may be) is a gentleman. He is incapable of willfully deceiving a woman who loves and trusts him. He will do you justice. On my side, I will do you justice, too. If the legal opinion is adverse to your rightful claims, I will promise to answer any questions which you may choose to put to me. As it is, I believe you to be lawfully my son's wife; and I say again, make the best of your position. Be satisfied with your husband's affectionate devotion to you. If you value your peace of mind and the happiness of your life to come, abstain from attempting to know more than you know now.'

She sat down again with the air of a woman who had said her last word.