“Thank God, my sweet Estelle knows nothing of this worldly wisdom, this doubling and twisting, this steering by expediency! She has no hand in it, is not responsible for it, is indeed totally ignorant of it. From first to last, through all this veering and trimming of others, _she_ has held her pure, high, straightforward course, her path of duty, of self-denial, self-immolation!” And by contrast with these time-servers she seemed so true, so holy, and so lovely, that his feeling for her, took the form of prayer, and he stood in perfect silence before the window, until the cheery voice of Lord Dazzleright summoned him to the table. “Tell me one thing!” said Lord Montressor as he took his seat at the board, “tell me for the satisfaction of my old friendship for you,—how you could conscientiously seek to overthrow Estelle’s first marriage, unless you believed it to have been illegal?—and if you believe it to be so, how can you possibly seek now to establish it!” “I will tell you—as you said, a lawyer’s opinion or a Judge’s decision cannot in the slightest degree alter the moral aspect of any case. Now the moral aspect of that case, to me, was this:—that no sinner should be allowed to take advantage of his own sin—that Monsieur Victoire should not be permitted to carry off a woman of whom he had so dishonestly possessed himself—if there was any law to prevent him from doing so! And of course I knew that there was plenty of law for that, as for most other purposes, good or evil. And I determined to use the law. As for the legal character of that marriage—there was so much to be said on both sides, that really, had my own feelings been disinterested, I should have found it difficult to have taken up with zeal, _either_ side; but my sympathies were strongly enlisted, and I went to work with all my heart and soul to save Estelle from the talons of the vulture Victoire. Now that the bird of prey is dead—though neither the moral nor the legal aspect of that fatal marriage is altered by that circumstance, any more than it could be by the decision of a court—yet my policy is changed—it is now expedient, for the reasons heretofore stated, that I use the powers of the law to establish the validity of the marriage, which it was then expedient that I used the same powers to overthrow. Then I was compelled to choose between two evils—now I advocate a positive good.” “Thank God, Estelle is innocent of the knowledge of your policy! I can bear this system of expediency in _you_. I can even thank you for it, and admit that there is a sort of worldly wisdom in it! Nay, more—I can accept your congratulations upon my disappointment in failing to meet Estelle! And I can rejoice in the knowledge of never having passed one moment alone with her since our marriage ceremony! For, indeed, scarcely to save my own soul alive, would I bring upon her stricken young head one shadow of reproach! I will await the action of the Arches Court.” “And then?”