"Soon--what do you mean by soon?" asked Edith, impatiently.
"As soon as my plans will allow me to proceed to extremities with him."
"Your plans!" repeated Edith. "You are always bringing up your plans.
Whatever is concerned, you plead your plans. They form a sufficient excuse for you to refuse the commonest justice. And yet what I ask is certainly for your own interests."
"If you knew me better," said Wiggins, "you would not appeal to my interests. I have not generally fashioned my life with regard to my own advantage. Some day you will see this. You, at least, should be the last one to complain of my plans, since they refer exclusively to the vindication of your injured father."
"So you have said before," said Edith, coldly. "Those plans must be very convenient, since you use them to excuse every possible act of yours."
"You will not have to wait long now," said Wiggins, in a weary voice, as though this interview was too much for his endurance--"not very long. I have heard to-day of something which is very favorable. Since the trial certain doc.u.ments and other articles have been kept by the authorities, and an application has been made for these, with a view to the establishment of your father"s innocence. I have recently heard that the application is about to be granted."
"You always answer my appeals for common justice," said Edith, with unchanged coldness, "by some reference to my father. It seems to me that if you had wished to vindicate his innocence, it would have been better to do so while he was alive. If you had done so, it might have been better for yourself in the end. But now these allusions are idle and worse than useless. They have no effect on me whatever. I value them at what they are worth."
With these words Edith rose and left the room. She returned to her own apartments with a feeling of profound dejection and disappointment. Of Wiggins she could make nothing. He promised, but his promises were too vague to afford satisfaction.
Leon Dudleigh was away now, but would probably be back before long. As she had failed with Wiggins, only one thing remained, and that was to see Leon. She was resolved to meet him at once on his arrival, and fight out once for all that battle which was inevitable between herself and him.
CHAPTER x.x.xI.
THE IRREPRESSIBLE STRUGGLE.
About a month pa.s.sed away, during which time Edith, in spite of her troubles, grew stronger every day. Youth and a good, const.i.tution were on her side, and enabled her to rally rapidly from the prostration to which she had been subjected.
At length one morning she learned that Leon had arrived at the Hall.
This news gave her great satisfaction, for she had been waiting long, and felt anxious to see him face to face, to tell him her own mind, and gather from him, if possible, what his intentions were. An interview with him under such peculiar circ.u.mstances might have been painful had she been less courageous or less self-possessed; but to one with such lofty pride as hers, and filled as she was with such scorn of Leon, and convinced as she was that he was at heart an arrant coward, such an interview had nothing in it to deter her. Suspense was worse. She wished to meet that man.
She sent word to him that she wished to see him, after which she went down to the drawing-room and waited. Leon certainly showed no haste, for it was as much as an hour before he made his appearance. On entering he a.s.sumed that languid air which he had adopted on some of his former visits. He looked carelessly at her, and then threw himself into a chair.
"Really, Mrs. Dudleigh," said he, "this is an unexpected pleasure. "Pon my life, I had no idea that you would volunteer to do me so much honor!"
"I am not Mrs. Dudleigh," said Edith, "as you very well know. I am Miss Dalton, and if you expect me to have any thing to say to you, you must call me by my proper name. You will suffer dearly enough yet for your crimes, and have no need to add to them."
"Now, my dear," said Leon, "that is kind and wife-like, and all that. It reminds me of the way in which wives sometimes speak in the plays."
"Speak to me as Miss Dalton, or you shall not speak to me at all."
"It"s quite evident," said Leon, with a sneer, "that you don"t know into whose hands you"ve fallen."
"On the contrary," said Edith, contemptuously, "it has been my fortune, or my misfortune, to understand from the first both you and Wiggins."
Leon gave a light laugh.
"Your temper," said he, "has not improved much, at any rate. That"s quite evident. You have always shown a very peculiar idea of the way in which a lady should speak to a gentleman."
"One would suppose by that," said Edith, "that you actually meant to hint that you considered yourself a gentleman."
"So I am," said Leon, haughtily.
"As you have no particular birth or family," said Edith, in her most insolent tone, "I suppose you must rest your claims to be a gentleman altogether on your good manners and high-toned character."
"Birth and family!" exclaimed Leon, excitedly, "what do you know about them! You don"t know what you"re talking about."
"I know nothing about you, certainly," said Edith. "I suppose you are some mere adventurer."
Leon looked at her for a moment with a glance of intense rage; and as she calmly returned his gaze, she noticed that peculiarity of his frowning brow a red spot in the middle, with deep lines.
"You surely in your wildest dreams," said she, "never supposed that I took you for a gentleman."
"Let me tell you," cried Leon, stammering in his pa.s.sion "let me tell you that I a.s.sociate with the proudest in the land."
"I know that," replied Edith, quietly. "Am _I_ not here! But you are only tolerated."
"Miss Dalton," cried Leon, "you shall suffer for this."
"Thank you," said Edith: "for once in your life you have spoken to me without insulting me. You have called me by my right name. I could smile at your threat under any circ.u.mstances, but now I can forgive it."
"It seems to me," growled Leon, "that you are riding the high horse somewhat, and that this is a rather queer tone for you to a.s.sume toward me."
"I always a.s.sume a high tone toward low people."
"Low people! What do you mean!" cried Leon, his face purple with rage.
"I really don"t know any name better than that for you and your friends."
"The name of Dudleigh," said Leon, "is one of the proudest in the land."
[Ill.u.s.tration: SHE CONFRONTED HIM WITH A COLD, STONY GLARE.]
"I swear by all that"s holy that you are really my wife. The marriage was a valid one. No law can break it. The banns were published in the village church. All the villagers heard them. Wiggins kept himself shut up so that he knew nothing about it. The clergyman is the vicar of Dalton--the Rev. Mr. Munn. It has been, published in the papers. In the eye of the law you are no longer Miss Dalton. you are Mrs. Leon Dudleigh. You are my wife!"
At these words, in spite of Edith"s pride and courage, there came over her a dark fear that all this might indeed be as he said. The mention of the published banns disturbed her, and shook that proud and obstinate conviction which she had thus far entertained that the scene in the chapel was only a brutal practical joke. It might be far more. It might not be a mockery after all. It might be good in the eye of the law--that law whose injustice had been shown to her in the terrible experience of her father; and if this were so, what then?
A pang of anguish shot through her heart as this terrific thought occurred. But the pang pa.s.sed away, and with it the terror pa.s.sed also.
Once more she called to her aid that stubborn Dalton fort.i.tude and Dalton pride which had thus far so well sustained her.
"_Your_ wife!" she exclaimed, with a loathing and a scorn in her face and in her voice that words could not express, at the sight of which even Leon, with all his insolence, was cowed--"_your_ wife!
Do you think you can affect me by lies like these?"
"Lies!" repeated Leon--"it"s the truth. You are my wife, and you must sign these papers."
"I don"t think so," said Edith, resuming her former coolness.