“But still you are not married,” said the pitiless visitor, his keen eyes lancing the soul of the tortured girl. “Permit me to explain. My son procured a marriage license, and he made oath that you and he were both of age, and legally your own masters. He swore to a lie. Now that is perjury. A marriage of minors without consent of parents is null and void, and my consent was not given. Your marriage is illegal, is no marriage at all. You are as free and Rufus is as free as if this little episode had not been.” “Oh, Heaven!” moaned the young girl, in a wild strained voice, sinking back into a chair. “Not married--not his wife!” “You are not his wife,” declared Craven Black mercilessly. “I cannot comprehend by what fascination you lured my son into this connection with you, but no doubt he was equally to blame. He is well born and well connected. You are neither. A marriage between you and him is something preposterous. I have no fancy for an alliance with the family of a tallow-chandler. I speak plainly, because delicacy is out of place in handling this affair. You are of one grade in life, we of another. I recognize your ambition and desire to rise in the world, but it must not be done at my expense.” “Ambition?” repeated poor Lally, putting her hand to her forehead. “I never thought of rising in the world when I married Rufus. I loved him, and he loved me. And we meant to work together, and we have been so happy. Oh, I am married to him! Do not say that I am not. I am his wife, Mr. Black--I am his own wife!” “And I repeat that you are not,” said Mr. Black harshly. “The law will not recognize such a marriage. And if you persist in clinging to the prize you fancy you have hooked, I will have Rufus arrested on the charge of perjury and sent to prison.” Lally uttered a cry of horror. Her eyes dilated, her thin chest heaved, her black eyes burned with the fires that raged in her young soul. “Rufus has recognized the stern necessity of the case, and full of fears for his own safety he has given you up,” continued Lally’s persecutor. “He will never see you again, and desires you, if you have any regard for him and his safety, to quietly give him up, and glide back into your own proper sphere.” “I will not give him up!” cried Lally--“never! never! Not until his own lips tell me so! You are cruel, but you cannot deceive me. I am his own wife, and I will never give him up!” “Read that!” said Mr. Black, producing the note his son had written. “I presume you know his handwriting?” He tossed to Lally the folded paper. She seized it and read it eagerly, her face growing white and rigid like stone. She knew the handwriting only too well. And in this letter Rufus confirmed his father’s words, and utterly renounced her. A conviction of the truth settled down like a funeral pall upon her young soul.