"Sir Geoffrey Beaudesert can not marry Lady Prudence Brooke for the very good reason that she is already married," Goodridge whispered, leaning across the table with his mouth at Aarons’ ear. The usurer started back and his face became black with fury. "Lady Prudence married!" he exclaimed. "Sh-sh-sh!" Goodridge glanced round apprehensively; "don’t blurt it out for the whole town to hear. Yes, she is married. I myself performed the ceremony." "You performed the ceremony!" muttered Aarons, with increasing anger and amazement. "Tell me the whole story; whom did she marry, and when?" "Is it worth the money?" asked Goodridge, leering at his scowling face. Aarons pushed the twenty-five guineas across the table with quick impatience, and the other picked them up, counted them and stowed them in his pocket, before continuing. "I married her less than a week ago," he then went on. "The wedding took place in Newgate Prison, and the bridegroom was Robin Freemantle, the highwayman. Now you know as much as I do." "You lie, you damned scoundrel!" roared Aarons, beside himself with rage. "This is an invention to rob me. You think to get my money for a tissue of lies and then laugh at me for a credulous fool! A woman who could pick and choose among a dozen titles and fortunes many a felon in jail! If this is a joke, it is a dangerous one, Mister Parson, as you will find unless you return my money and make me a humble apology." Goodridge had risen to his feet and, considerably sobered by this unexpected outburst, faced the infuriated man, pale beneath his vinous flush. "Did you think to get such a secret as that from me and then rob me of the price?" he stuttered. "I swear by the Cross you accursed Jews despise, that I have told you the truth. Last Friday I married Prudence, widow of James Stuart Brooke," he sank his voice to a whisper, "to the highwayman, then under sentence to be hanged last Monday." A gleam shot across Aarons’ face. "Hanged last Monday!" he exclaimed. "Why, then, she’s a widow again." "That’s what she expected to be, I’ll be sworn," said Goodridge, with great significance. "But I said _under sentence_. That sentence was not carried out. He was reprieved and set at liberty, and my lady is still his wife." A dark frown furrowed the usurer’s brow. Before his eyes rose the vision of the beautiful object of his desire, with the diamonds he had thought to buy her with around her milky throat and the banknotes he had refused in payment lying unregarded on the table. He ground his teeth in impotent fury to think how he had been the dupe of his own fatuity, and a savage longing rose in him for revenge upon the disdainful beauty, whose astounding caprice had placed her out of his reach.