Victor's Triumph Part 67

CHAPTER XLVI.

THE INVESTIGATION.

One is my true and honorable wife, As dear to me as are the ruddy drops That visit my sad heart.

--SHAKESPEARE.

In due time they reached the village and were driven at once to the office of the magistrate, Squire Estep, of Spring Hill Manor.

No rumor of the arrest had got abroad, and no crowd was collected about the office doors.

The sheriff alighted first, and was followed out by the accused and his two friends.

They entered the office, where just then no one was present except the magistrate, one clerk and two constables.

The three gentlemen bowed as they entered, and the venerable magistrate arose and acknowledged their presence by a nod and sat down again.

The sheriff laid the warrant on the table before the magistrate and, pointing to Mr. Alden Lytton, said:

"That is the prisoner, your worship."

One of the constables placed chairs, and the gentlemen seated themselves and waited.

"White," said Mr. Estep, addressing one of the constables, "go to the Reindeer and serve this upon the gentleman to whom it is directed, and whom you will find there."

The constable took the slip of paper from the speaker's hand, bowed and went out.

And the three gentlemen waited with what patience they might command, while the magistrate drummed upon the table with his fingers.

Presently the constable returned, ushering in two persons, in one of whom Alden Lytton recognized his great rival at the bar, Philip Desmond.

The other, an elderly gentleman in a clergyman's dress, was a total stranger to him.

Both these gentlemen bowed to the magistrate and to the accused and his friends, and one of them--the clerical stranger--came up to Alden and, to his great amazement, said:

"I am very sorry, Mr. Lytton, in meeting you a second time, to see you here in this position; sorrier still that I am here to bear testimony against you."

While he was saying this the magistrate, who was engaged in searching among some doc.u.ments, drew forth from them a paper which seemed to be a memorandum, which he from time to time consulted, as he addressed the accused and said:

"You are Mr. Alden Lytton, attorney at law, of the Richmond bar, I believe?"

"I am," answered Alden Lytton.

"Attend, if you please, to the reading of this," said the magistrate, as he commenced and read out aloud the warrant upon which the accused had been brought before him.

At the conclusion of the reading Alden Lytton bowed gravely and waited.

"Mr. Alden Lytton, you have heard that you are charged with having, on the fifteenth of February of this present year, feloniously intermarried with Emma Angela Cavendish, in and during the lifetime of your lawful wife, Mary Lytton, now living in this State. Such marriage, under such circ.u.mstances, being a felony, punishable with imprisonment and hard labor in the State Penitentiary for a term not less than ---- or more than ---- years. What have you to say to this charge?" inquired the magistrate.

Alden Lytton with some difficulty controlled his indignation as he answered:

"It is perfectly true that in last February I married Miss Cavendish, of Blue Cliffs. But it is a false and malicious slander that I ever at any time married any one else. It is only amazing to me, Mr. Magistrate, that you should have issued a warrant charging me with so base a crime.

You could not possibly have had any grounds to justify such a proceeding."

"We shall see," answered, the magistrate. "You admit that you married Miss Cavendish on the fifteenth of last February?"

"Certainly I do."

"Then nothing remains but to prove or to disprove the statement that at the time of your marriage with Miss Cavendish, at Blue Cliffs, you had a lawful wife then living in the city of Richmond."

Alden Lytton flushed to the temples at hearing his true wife's pure and n.o.ble name brought into this dishonoring examination. He spoke sternly as he inquired:

"Upon what grounds do you make this charge? Where are your witnesses?"

"The Reverend Mr. Borden will please step forward," said the magistrate.

The strange clergyman came up to the table and stood there.

The magistrate administered the oath to this witness.

At the same moment Mr. Philip Desmond took his place at the table to conduct the examination.

"Your name is Adam Borden?"

"Yes, sir," answered the clerical witness.

"You are the rector of Saint Blank's Episcopal Church, Philadelphia?"

"Yes, sir."

"You know the accused?"

"Yes, sir. He is Mr. Alden Lytton," replied the rector, bowing gravely to the prisoner.

Alden acknowledged the courtesy by a nod, and then waited with more amazement and curiosity than anxiety to hear what sort of a case they would make out against him with the aid of this man, whom he never saw before, and yet who claimed to know him well.

"State, if you please, Mr. Borden, what you know of Mr. Lytton in regard to this case."

"In the month of September of last year Mr. Lytton came to my house in company with a lady to whom he wished to be married immediately. I conducted the pair into the church and married them there, in the presence of my s.e.xton and his daughter. I registered the marriage in the church books and gave a certificate, signed by myself and the witnesses to the marriage. They then left the church together. I had never seen them before, and I have never seen them since until to-day, when I see and recognize Mr. Lytton, just as I should recognize his bride if I should see her."

"Where is she?" inquired the magistrate.

"Your worship, the lady can be produced at once, to be identified by the witness," said Philip Desmond.

And he wrote on a slip of paper and handed it to a constable, who silently left the room.

Meanwhile Alden Lytton waited with constantly increasing curiosity to find out to whom he had been unconsciously married in the month of September, and in the city of Philadelphia. It flashed upon him suddenly that he had been in Philadelphia about the middle of the last September, and in company with Mary Grey. But he felt certain that he had never gone out with her while there; and he waited with intensely curious interest to hear how they could possibly make out a case against him.

Presently the door opened and the constable returned, bringing with him a gracefully-moving woman, dressed in black and deeply veiled.