rnie
in evidence against you--and to assert that your declaration and Miss
Silvester's declaration are the result of collusion between you two.
Don't start! Such things have happened before now. Miss Silvester is
poor; and Blanche is rich. You may be made to stand in the awkward
position of a man who is denying his marriage with a poor woman,
in order to establish his marriage with an heiress: Miss Silvester
presumably aiding the fraud, with two strong interests of her own as
inducements--the interest of asserting the claim to be the wife of a man
of rank, and the interest of earning her reward in money for resigning
you to Blanche. There is a case which a scoundrel might set up--and with
some appearance of truth too--in a court of justice!"

"Surely, the law wouldn't allow him to do that?"

"The law will argue any thing, with any body who will pay the law for
the use of its brains and its time. Let that view of the matter alone
now. Delamayn can set the case going, if he likes, without applying to
any lawyer to help him. He has only to cause a report to reach Blanche's
ears which publicly asserts that she is not your lawful wife. With her
temper, do you suppose she would leave us a minute's peace till the
matter was cleared up? Or take it the other way. Comfort yourself, if
you will, with the idea that this affair will trouble nobody in the
present. How are we to know it may not turn up in the future under
circumstances which may place the legitimacy of your children in doubt?
We have a man to deal with who sticks at nothing. We have a state of
the law which can only be described as one scandalous uncertainty from
beginning to end. And we have two people (Bishopriggs and Mrs. Inchbare)
who can, and will, speak to what took place between you and Anne
Silvester at the inn. For Blanche's sake, and for the sake of your
unborn children, we must face this matter on the spot--and settle it at
once and forever. The question before us now is this. Shall we open the
proceedings by communicating with Miss Silvester or not?"

At that important point in the conversation they were interrupted by the
reappearance of Blanche. Had she, by any accident, heard what they had
been saying?

No; it was the old story of most interruptions. Idleness that considers
nothing, had come to look at Industry that bears every thing. It is
a law of nature, apparently, that the people in this world who have
nothing to do can not support the sigh