“What have you to say about the murder of that poor creature—your first wife?” he exclaimed, presently, walking up to the hearth by which Treverton and Laura were standing.
“Only that I know no more who killed her than you do,” answered John Treverton. “I did a foolish thing, perhaps a cowardly thing, when I left the house that night, with the determination never to return to it; but if you could know how intolerable my old life had become to me you would hardly wonder that I took the first opportunity of getting away from it.”
“We had better look at things from a business point of view,” said Mr. Sampson. “We are not going to do anything in a hurry. There will always be time enough for you to surrender the estate, Mr. Treverton, and to acknowledge yourself guilty of bigamy. But before you take such a step we may as well make ourselves sure of our facts. You married Mademoiselle Chicot in Paris?”
“Yes, on the eighteenth of May, sixty-eight. We were married at the Mairie. There was no other ceremony.”
“Under what name were you married?”
“My own naturally. It was only afterwards that I got to be known by my wife’s name.”
“Were you known to many people in Paris by your own name?”
“To very few. I had written in the newspapers under a nom de plume—my sketches at that time were all signed ‘Jack.’ I was generally known as Jack, and after my marriage I became Jack Chicot.”
“How much did you know of your wife’s antecedents?”
“Very little, except that she had come to Paris from Auray, in Brittany, about five years before I married her; that she lived reputably, although surrounded by much that was disreputable.”
“But of her life in Brittany you knew nothing?”
“I only knew what she told me. She was a fisherman’s daughter, born and reared in extreme poverty. She had grown weary of the hard monotony of her life, and had come to Paris alone, and for the most part of the way on foot, to make her fortune. Auray is a long day’s journey from Paris by rail. It took her nearly a month to travel the distance.”
“That is all you know?”
“Positively all.”
“Then you cannot know that she was free to contract a marriage—and you cannot know that you were legally married to her?” said Tom Sampson, triumphantly.
His interests as well as his client’s were at stake, and he was determined to make a hard fight for them. His stewardship was worth a good five hundred a year. If the estate came to be handed over for the establishment and maintenance of a hospital, he would in all probability lose his position of land steward and collector of rents. Some officious committee would oust him from his post. His trusteeship would bring him nothing but trouble.
“That is a curious way of looking at the question,” said Treverton, thoughtfully.
“It is the only right way. Why should any man be in a hurry to prove himself guilty of felony? How do you know that Mademoiselle Chicot did not leave a husband behind her at Auray? It may have been to escape from his ill-treatment that she came to Paris. That was a desperate step for a young woman to take—a month’s journey through a strange country, alone, and on foot.”
“She was so young,” said Treverton.
“Not too young to have married foolishly.”
“What would you advise me to do?”
“I’ll tell you tomorrow, when I’ve had time to think the matter over. I can tell you in the meantime what I would advise you not to do.”
“What is that?”
“Don’t surrender your estate till you—and we, as your wife’s trustees—are thoroughly convinced that you have no right to hold it. Mr. Clare, I must ask you, as my co-trustee to Mrs. Treverton’s marriage settlement, to be silent as to the whole of the facts that have become known to us tonight, and to request your son also to keep his knowledge to himself.”
“My son can have no motive for injuring Mr. and Mrs. Treverton,” said the Vicar.
“Of course not,” replied Sampson; “yet I thought his manner this evening was somewhat vindictive.”
“I believe he was only moved by his regard for Laura,” answered the Vicar. “He took up the matter warmly because he considered that she had been deeply injured. I can but think so too, and I do not wonder that my son should feel indignant. As to the legal bearing of the case, Mr. Sampson, I leave you to judge that, and to deal with that as you best may for the interests of your client. But as to its moral aspect, I should do less than my duty as a minister of the Gospel if I were not to declare that Mr. Treverton has been guilty of a sin which can only be atoned by deep and honest repentance. I will say no more than that now. Good night, Treverton. Good night, Laura.”
He took her in his arms and kissed her with fatherly affection. “Keep up your courage, my poor girl,” he said, in a low voice. “I wish your husband well out of his difficulties, for your sake. Will you come home to the Vicarage with me, and talk over your troubles with Celia? It might be a relief to you.”
“Leave my husband!” exclaimed Laura. “Leave him in grief and trouble! How could you think me capable of such a thing?” And then she drew the Vicar aside, and, in a tremulous voice, which was little more than a whisper, said to him, “Dear Mr. Clare, try not
