“I suppose you mean in America. No more slang than you can help, please. It’s admirably expressive sometimes, I allow: but not being used to it in my youth I have some difficulty in following. Well, about Tom Wyld—one of the old judge’s sons or grandsons, I suppose.”
Dick’s complexion heightened a little.
“Oh, not anyone you ever heard of—a fellow I picked up—out there.”
“Oh, a fellow you picked up out there?”
“It was in one of the new States far West; not the sort of place for nicety of any sort, sir, to tell the truth. Judge Lynch and not much else, in the way of law.”
“Works very well I don’t doubt—simplifies business immensely,” said the old lawyer, nodding his head.
“Makes business, too—lots of it. Well, sir, my friend met with a girl there.” Dick seemed to have great difficulty in getting this out. He stammered and his healthy complexion grew now pale, now red.
“Most likely—they generally do, both in novels and out of them,” the old gentleman said. “You had better tell me your story straight off. I shall interrupt you no more.”
“Well, sir, the girl was very young, very pretty, I might say beautiful—not like anything he had ever met before. Without training, but he thought at her pliable age it was so easy to remedy that.” (The old lawyer shook his head with a groan but said nothing.) “She had never seen anything but the rough people about, and knew only their manners and ways. Everything went on well enough for a little while after they were married.”
“Good Lord, they were married!”
“What else?” said Dick, turning scarlet. “He respected her as every man must respect the woman he—the woman he—thinks he loves.”
“I am glad you have the sense to see that he only thought he—Well, and what was the end of it, Mr. Dick?”
“The end of it was—what you have foreseen, sir,” said Dick, bowing his head. “The fellow is my friend, that’s to say Tom did all he could. I don’t think he was without patience with her. After, when she left him for good, or rather for bad, bad as could be, he did everything he could to help her. He offered, not to take her back, that was not possible, but to provide for her and—and all that. She had all the savage virtues as well as faults. She was honourable in her way. She would take nothing from him. She even made out what she called a paper, poor thing, to set him free. She would not take her freedom herself and leave him bound, she said. And then she disappeared.”
“Leaving him the paper?”
“Yes,” said Dick, with a faint smile, “leaving him the paper. He found it on his table. That is six years ago. He has never seen her since. He came home soon, feeling—I can’t tell you how he felt.”
“As if life were not much worth living, according to the slang of the day.”
“Well, sir,” said Dick, “he’s a droll sort of a fellow. He—seemed to get over it somehow. It took a vast deal out of him, but yet he got over it in a kind of a way. He came back among his own people; and what have they been doing since ever he came back but imploring him to marry! It would settle him they all said, if he could get some nice girl: and they have done nothing but throw nice girls in his way—some of the nicest girls in England, I believe—one—”
“Good Lord!” said the old man, “you don’t mean to say this unlucky young fellow has fallen in love again?”
Dick shook his head with a rueful air, in which it was impossible not to see a touch of the comic, notwithstanding his despair. “This is precisely why he wants your opinion, that is, someone’s opinion—for of course he has not the honour of knowing you.”
“Hasn’t he? Ah! I began to think I remembered something about your Tom—or was it Dick—Wyld? Tom Wyld—I think I have heard the name.”
“If you should meet him in society,” cried Dick, growing very red, “don’t for heaven’s sake make any allusion to this. I ought not to have mentioned his name.”
“Well, get on with the story,” said the old man. “He thinks, perhaps, he is free to make love to the other girl and marry—because of that precious paper.”
“He is not such a fool as that: I, even,” said Dick, faltering, “know law enough to warn him that would be folly. But you know, sir, in some of the wild States, like the one he lived in, divorce is the easiest thing in the world.”
“Well: and he thinks he can get a divorce? He had better do it then without more ado. I suppose the evidence—is sufficient?”
Dick gave vent to a hoarse, nervous laugh. “Sufficient—for twenty divorces,” he said, then he added quickly: “But that’s not the question.”
“Why, what is the question then? He should be very thankful to be able to manage it so easily instead of being dragged through the mud for everybody to gloat over in London. What does the fellow want?” said the old man peevishly. “Many a man would be glad to find so easy a way.”
Dick’s embarrassment was great, he changed colour, he could not keep still, his voice grew husky and broken. “I don’t say that I agree with him, but this is what he thinks. It’s easy enough: but he would have to summon her by the newspapers to answer for herself, which she wouldn’t do. And who can tell what hands that newspaper might fall into? He says that nobody knows anything about it here; no one has the slightest suspicion that he ever was married or had any entanglement. And she, poor soul, to do her justice, would never put forth a claim. She never would molest him, of that he is sure. He thinks—”
“You take a great deal
