What might have happened if her relatives
had been what is termed 'respectable' I cannot pretend to say. As it
was, they were people who could (in the common phrase) be conveniently
treated with. The only survivor of the family at the present time is
a scoundrel calling himself Captain Wragge. When I tell you that he
privately extorted the price of his silence from Mrs. Vanstone to
the last; and when I add that his conduct presents no extraordinary
exception to the conduct, in their lifetime, of the other relatives--you
will understand what sort of people I had to deal with in my client's
interests, and how their assumed indignation was appeased.
"Having, in the first instance, left England for Ireland, Mr. Vanstone
and Miss Blake remained there afterward for some years. Girl as she was,
she faced her position and its necessities without flinching. Having
once resolved to sacrifice her life to the man she loved; having quieted
her conscience by persuading herself that his marriage was a legal
mockery, and that she was 'his wife in the sight of Heaven,' she set
herself from the first to accomplish the one foremost purpose of so
living with him, in the world's eye, as never to raise the suspicion
that she was not his lawful wife.
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