There would have been no justice for her--not from that quarter. He
would probably have forbidden the child to be moved out of his
jurisdiction, pending the progress of a trial which might never end.
Nor could the English Court, with its obsolete provisions on this head,
have regarded Muhlen otherwise than as her legal husband--the child of
her later union as illegitimate. Bastardy: a taint for life! How well
she had done to put herself beyond a rancorous letter of the law; to
protect her child and family according to the immutable instincts of
mankind!
The Nepenthe magistrate had shown what he was capable of, in his
bestial dealings with a half-witted lad and those harmless Russian
lunatics--the first one saved through the intervention of a cut-throat
politician, and the second . . . well, he did not exactly know how the
Muscovites had been able to regain their freedom but, remembering what
Keith had told him about Miss Wilberforce, her periodical imprisonments
and his periodical bribes, he shrewdly suspected some underhand
practices on the part of that gentleman at the instigation, very
possibly, of the charming Madame Steynlin.
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