"
"You shall be obeyed," he remarked, bowing low and derisively. "Yet,
believe me, nothing but my care for your fair fame and my own have led
me to confine you in such narrow limits for a season which, I trust, is
almost over. As to my persecutions, which, I am told, you allege as a
reason for leaving your house and friends so precipitately, these are
out of the question henceforth forever, I assure you"--with a wave of
the velvet hand--"since I am privately married to a lady of rank and
fortune, who will soon be openly proclaimed 'my wife,' and who will be
found, on close acquaintance, worthy of your friendship."
While giving utterance to this tirade, Mr. Bainrothe was slowly
unwinding a string from around the roll of papers he had laid on the
table, and which he now proceeded to spread somewhat ostentatiously
before me, still mute and impassive to all his advances as I continued
to be.
"There are several," he said. "Your signature to each, will be
required, which, now that you are in your right mind again, and of age,
will be binding, as you know. My witnesses shall be called in when the
time comes. Dr. Englehart and Mrs. Clayton will suffice as proofs of
these solemnities--these and others likely to occur."
"Solemnities! Levities, mockeries rather!" I could not help rejoining.
He felt the sarcasm.
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