Part 167

“And this you say, on your word of honor as a gentleman?”

“On my word of honor as a gentleman.”

Sir Patrick turned to Anne.

“Was it a matter of necessity, Miss Silvester, that you should appear in the assumed character of a married woman--on the fourteenth of August last, at the Craig Fernie inn?”

Anne looked away from Blanche for the first time. She replied to Sir Patrick quietly, readily, firmly--Blanche looking at her, and listening to her with eager interest.

“I went to the inn alone, Sir Patrick. The landlady refused, in the plainest terms, to let me stay there, unless she was first satisfied that I was a married woman.”

“Which of the two gentlemen did you expect to join you at the inn--Mr. Arnold Brinkworth, or Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn?”

“Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn.”

“When Mr. Arnold Brinkworth came in his place and said what was necessary to satisfy the scruples of the landlady, you understood that he was acting in your interests, from motives of kindness only, and under the instructions of Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn?”

“I understood that; and I objected as strongly as I could to Mr. Brinkworth placing himself in a false position on my account.”

“Did your objection proceed from any knowledge of the Scottish law of marriage, and of the position in which the peculiarities of that law might place Mr. Brinkworth?”

“I had no knowledge of the Scottish law. I had a vague dislike and dread of the deception which Mr. Brinkworth was practicing on the people of the inn. And I feared that it might lead to some possible misinterpretation of me on the part of a person whom I dearly loved.”

“That person being my niece?”

“Yes.”

“You appealed to Mr. Brinkworth (knowing of his attachment to my niece), in her name, and for her sake, to leave you to shift for yourself?”

“I did.”

“As a gentleman who had given his promise to help and protect a lady, in the absence of the person whom she had depended on to join her, he refused to leave you to shift by yourself?”

“Unhappily, he refused on that account.”

“From first to last, you were absolutely innocent of the slightest intention to marry Mr. Brinkworth?”

“I answer, Sir Patrick, as Mr. Brinkworth has answered. No such thing as the thought of marrying him ever entered my head.”

“And this you say, on your oath as a Christian woman?”

“On my oath as a Christian woman.”

Sir Patrick looked round at Blanche. Her face was hidden in her hands. Her step-mother was vainly appealing to her to compose herself.

In the moment of silence that followed, Mr. Moy interfered in the interests of his client.

“I waive my claim, Sir Patrick, to put any questions on my side. I merely desire to remind you, and to remind the company present, that all that we have just heard is mere assertion--on the part of two persons strongly interested in extricating themselves from a position which fatally compromises them both. The marriage which they deny I am now waiting to prove--not by assertion, on my side, but by appeal to competent witnesses.”

After a brief consultation with her own solicitor, Lady Lundie followed Mr. Moy, in stronger language still.

“I wish you to understand, Sir Patrick, before you proceed any farther, that I shall remove my step-daughter from the room if any more attempts are made to harrow her feelings and mislead her judgment. I want words to express my sense of this most cruel and unfair way of conducting the inquiry.”

The London lawyer followed, stating his professional approval of his client’s view. “As her ladyship’s legal adviser,” he said, “I support the protest which her ladyship has just made.”