John Legg sighed deeply. He did not think “how sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child,” because he had never seen the lines, but he sighed more than once as he answered: “In the first place, my daughter, your miserable husband, as you call him, is not Randolph Hay, and has not a shadow of a right to that name or to the estate of Haymore.” Lamia started up and looked her father in the face. “Who and what is he, then?” she fiercely demanded. “An adventurer with many aliases; a fraudulent claimant of the Haymore estates, who has sustained his false position by robbery, forgery and perjury, but who has been recently detected, and who is about to be exposed and punished.” “I am not surprised! I am not surprised! I expected something like this! I did! I did! Tell me, does Mr. Will Walling know anything about it?” “He knows all about it. His business in England is to bring that man to justice.” Lamia sprang from her father’s arms, throwing him suddenly back by the violence of her motion, and began to walk wildly up and down the floor, exclaiming and gesticulating like a maniac, and thinking only of herself and of her own interests, and of no one and nothing else under the sun. “To bring me to this! Oh, the villain! the villain! But I will have nothing more to do with him! I will never speak to him again! I will never look on his face again! Do you hear me, papa?” she cried, suddenly pausing, with flashing eyes, before her father’s chair. “Do you hear me, I say? I will never live with that felon again—never speak to him—never look at him!” “My child, you are quite right in your resolution. It would be wrong and even criminal in you to do otherwise,” said John Legg, gently drawing his daughter into his arms again and adding sorrowfully, “for I have something more to tell you.” “You could not tell me anything more shameful than you have already told me! Even if you should prove that that villain had been a murderer, as well as a robber, forger and perjurer, it would not be worse, since hanging is no more disgraceful than penal servitude. To be the wife of a felon—the wife of a convict! But I will not be! I will be separated by law! I will be divorced!” This she repeated over so often and with so much excitement that at last her father said to her: “My poor child, you will not need to appeal to the law.” “What do you mean?” she demanded, impressed by the solemnity of his manner. “You will not require a divorce,” he replied. “That is just, in effect, what you said before. Why will I not require a divorce? The man is not dead, nor going to die! He will not commit suicide. No, indeed, trust him for that! He is too great a coward! And he is in no danger of being hanged. How, then, should you say that I will not require a divorce, since death is not likely to relieve me of my felon husband—ugh!” she exclaimed in strong disgust. “My dear, the man has never been your husband,” he said slowly and distinctly.