Part 2 (2/2)
”Yes, you. You're the only woman within reach, except old Nannie, who hardly counts, or I wouldn't trouble you. Answer me shortly--yes or no--will you be his wife?”
”Marry a perfect stranger!--a man I've never seen!--who you say is dying!”
”Precisely; it is a mere formula to which I'm asking your subscription. He'll certainly be dead inside two hours, possibly in very much less. You'll be a widow in one of the shortest times on record; in possession of a wife's share of all his worldly goods--and that, by all accounts, should be worth fully twenty thousand pounds.”
”Twenty thousand pounds! But why should he want to marry any one if he's dying?”
”There's not much time for explanation, but I'll explain this much. He's made a will in favour of a certain person. That will he is anxious to revoke. If he marries it will become invalid.
As matters stand it will be easier for him to take a wife than to make another will.”
”You are sure he will be dead within two hours?”
”Quite. I shall not be surprised to learn that he's dead already. You are losing your chances of becoming a well-to-do widow by lingering here.”
”You are certain he will leave me twenty thousand pounds?”
”The simple fact of his death will make it yours. So soon as the breath is out of his body you will become ent.i.tled to a wife's inheritance--if you are his wife.”
”You are not playing me any trick? It is all just as you say?”
”On my honour, it is all just as I say. There is no trick. If you will come with me upstairs you will be able to judge for yourself.”
”But how can we be married at a moment's notice? Is there a clergyman in the house?”
”You forget you are in Scotland. Neither notice nor clergyman is needed. It will be sufficient for you to recognise each other as husband and wife in the presence of witnesses; that act of mutual recognition will in itself const.i.tute a legal marriage which all the lawyers will not be able to break. That is why it will be easier for him to marry than to make another will.”
”There is not the least doubt that he will be dead within two hours?”
”Not the least--unless a miracle intervenes.”
She was sitting with her hands clenched in her lap, a perceptible interval of silence intervening before the words burst from her lips--
”Then I'll marry him!”
CHAPTER III
WHOM G.o.d HATH JOINED
Dr. Twelves showed no sign of either surprise or gratification.
He looked at her dispa.s.sionately, almost apathetically, from under his overhanging eyebrows.
”Can you walk upstairs without a.s.sistance?”
”I'm afraid not. I don't think my ankle is any better.”
He stooped down.
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