CHAPTER XLII

THE EARL’S DISCOVERY

The church bells were chiming twelve, midnight, as the earl and the squire walked along the now almost deserted avenue toward their hotel.

“I had no idea it was so late,” said the earl.

“Nor I,” assented the squire.

“Force!”

“Well?”

“Will you tell me now, as we walk along, why my sister’s first marriage was kept a secret from me during all these years? Why even my chum in college, my fellow soldier in camp, never once mentioned the matter to me?”

“He has explained that in his case it was because no one spoke of it to him, and it was not his cue to be the first to allude to it.”

“But why? Why was all this mystery about a marriage that was honorable enough in itself?”

“Because there was a fatal misapprehension. I call it fatal, on account of the years of untold misery it entailed upon more than one.”

“Explain.”

“You remember, and can now at last appreciate, the dreary loneliness and isolation of your sister’s childhood and early youth at Weirdwaste?”

“Oh, yes! yes!”

“And the bewildering change that Brighton and a princely lover must have been to the hitherto solitary recluse of Weirdwaste?”

“Yes, yes!”

“The fear of having to return to that desolation must have been as strong a motive as love itself in inducing her to fly to Scotland with her lover.”

“Most probably.”

“She had neither father, nor brother, nor any relative near her; no one but governesses and servants.”

“Ah! my poor father never meant to be unkind, but it was cruel to leave her in that isolation.”

“She found it so; and she listened to the pleadings of her lover, whom her imagination had elevated into a hero, martyr, patriot and humanitarian, when, in fact, he was only a political refugee, on account of some hotheaded revolutionary utterances he had given.”

“Yes, I heard of Saviola’s exile while at Brighton; but I never met the man.”

“I think your friend Anglesea had not met him at the time you were in Brighton. He first met Saviola at Lord Middlemoor’s, on Brunswick Terrace.”

“You seem to be well informed on all points of this affair, Force.”

“Pretty well,” said the squire; “but to proceed. Your sister went to Scotland to marry Saviola, escorted by your friend Anglesea, who, having done all he could to dissuade the Italian from running away with the young lady, and having failed, was resolved that the marriage that he could not prevent should at least be properly and legally solemnized.”

“Yes, he told us that.”

“And he told you also that he was bound to secrecy.”

“He did.”

“Well, now to the point. When the newly married pair parted from Anglesea, on the day of their marriage, they never saw him again.”

“No?”

“No. You heard Anglesea relate how the old Prince Antonio Saviola supposed him—Anglesea—to have acted as second to Luigi Saviola on the occasion of his fatal duel with the Duc de Montmeri, and how he—Anglesea—had denied all knowledge of the tragedy?”

“Yes, I did hear, and I remembered that Anglesea was at that very time at college with me.”

“Well, then, Enderby, listen: If the bona-fide Anglesea did not officiate as Luigi Saviola’s second in that duel, his double, Byrne Stukely, did.”

“What!”

“Yes, Anglesea’s _bête noir_, evil genius, material counterpart, Byrne Stukely, did. He personated Anglesea in Paris, on the dueling ground, and at the death of Saviola, and in the apartments of Saviola’s widow!”

“Ah! what new infamy is this of which you tell me? I shall have to prosecute that villain if he should escape the law here!” exclaimed the earl.

“He will not escape the law here; but to proceed——”

“Yes—yes!”

“Stukely received the last dying messages from the lips of Saviola, and some little time afterward took them to his widow in Geneva. There, passing himself off for Anglesea—undetected, unsuspected by her, he delivered his credentials, and won her confidence. But, when he saw the beautiful young widow, he dared to think of her in a manner that should have brought down upon him severe chastisement.”

“How? What?” demanded the earl, in an excited voice.

“Calm yourself, Enderby. Be patient, my friend. Here is our hotel. Shall we go in?”

“No! no! I cannot go indoors now! Let us walk here where the night air cools my head—unless you are tired, Force?”

“No, I am not tired. We will walk on a little way.”

“Well, go on!”

“With an artful delicacy, with sham sympathy, he approached the subject, and told Saviola’s widow that she was, in fact, no widow at all; that her marriage with the late prince was null and void from the first, because it had been celebrated at Kelton, in Cumberland, England, instead of at Kilton, in ——shire, Scotland. He manufactured plenty of false evidence to prove his falsehood to be truth, and then—and then——”

“What? what?”

“He insulted the lady with the offer of his heart and——”

“Hand?”

“Protection!” murmured the squire.

The earl sprang into the air as if he had been shot, but came down upon his feet. He said nothing. There are some things that will not bear a single word of comment. This was one.

“She ordered the venomous reptile from her presence, and he crawled away, but left his poisoned sting behind. The consummate art of his false evidence had convinced her, as it afterward convinced her father, and, later on, myself also, that her marriage ceremony with Saviola was an empty form—null and void. Her father never knew otherwise. She does not know otherwise to this day. And I knew no better until to-night.”

“You believed my sister, your wife, to have been the victim of a false first marriage until to-night?”

“Yes, until the moment when Gen. Anglesea produced the certificate, and told the true story.”

“And yet you married her!”

“Yes, thank Heaven, I was permitted to marry her, and she has been the light of my life,” said the squire, fervently.

“With this cloud overshadowing her.”

“Enderby, every one of us has something to bear. This secret and its evil consequences have been our cross. We have had no other. We have loved each other truly, and we have been happy in our married life, notwithstanding our cross.”

“Force, you are a noble fellow! But now about her son. Where is he?”

“Well,” said the squire, smiling and hesitating, “he is a very fine young man, a prisoner of war at present, but he shall be free to-morrow.”

“Not—Roland Bayard!”

“Yes, Roland Bayard. As fine a young man as breathes.”

“Then, after his mother, he is my heir.”

“Yes, Anglesea has proved his legal right to be called so.”

“Force, does the boy know of his parentage?”

“No. His birth was a mystery to him, as it was to every one except me and his mother. He believes himself to be the son of Byrne Stukely, and that is the reason why his tongue has been tied, so that he will not give the evidence that will clear himself and go near to hang Stukely.”

“I see! I see!”

“But he shall give it to-morrow, and be set at liberty. I shall see to that. Here we are again at the door of our hotel. Shall we go in? Or have you anything else to ask me?” questioned the squire.

“No; nothing else to-night. Let us go in.”

The two gentlemen entered the house, got their chamber keys from the sleepy watchman, and went upstairs.

The public parlors were dark and deserted. The gas burned low in the halls.

The earl and the squire bade each other good-night and separated, and went off to their several apartments.

Mr. Force climbed another flight of stairs to seek the little room he had occupied since his wife’s illness.

He paused at the door of her sick chamber and knocked lightly.

The night nurse answered the summons.

“How is Mrs. Force this evening?” he inquired.

“She is better, sir, and she is sleeping nicely,” replied the woman.

“Thank Heaven! Good-night,” said the squire, as he turned away and entered his own little room.

He retired to bed, too happy to sleep until near morning, when at length he sank to rest.