"And of what avail will that be to you? You cannot claim our daughter as your wife without an open confession of having married the Widow Wright during the lifetime of your first wife, and thereby exposing yourself to prosecution for more than one crime, the least of which would send you to State prison--for bigamy, for forgery, for robbery. And do you think your California victim is of a temper and disposition to spare you, when she finds out that she has been so criminally deceived--when she knows that you are not her husband? No! She will prosecute you to the utmost extent of the law. And, even if it were possible to suppose that she could forgive your black villainy, forget her own deep wrongs, and forego vengeance, do you suppose it possible that Abel Force would ever be brought to recognize your claim to his daughter? Never, you may depend on it! He will repudiate your claim as the most shameful insult to his family. He will protect his daughter against you with his life. If needful, he will seek a dissolution of this merely nominal ceremony of marriage in the proper courts of law. Why, Abel Force would see his daughter in her grave before he would see her sacrificed to a man publicly disgraced as you have been!" "Quite so. I perfectly understand that. The situation would be exceedingly awkward in any light. So, my lady, I am not so mad as to come here to claim immediate possession of my wife. I came, as I said, to prove to you that I have a legal claim upon her; that I am her lawfully wedded husband; that she is my lawful wife. All this seems tautological, vainly repetitive; but, then, repetitions are really necessary to make an impression on some people--on yourself, as a matter of detail." "Be as brief as possible, if you please," said the lady, much relieved by what he had just told her of his non-intention to put in any present claim to the possession of Odalite. "I will. I shall leave this part of the country in a few hours, and depart for England within a few days. I really think it is the best course for me to pursue at present." "I really think it is," put in the lady. "Thanks. You really deserve my forbearance, and I shall spare you for the present, upon certain conditions. If these conditions be fulfilled, you are safe. If they be not, you are lost." "Let me hear them. I am not at all sure that I shall not prefer to be lost," said the lady, whose spirits had risen under the prospect of her enemy's retreat from the neighborhood.