He knew his end was at hand; at every moment he expected the sharp thrust of the rapier through his body, or the heavy swinging blow that would cleave his head in half. He knew one or the other must come, yet he fought hard against the odds, with his back against the house behind him, his teeth clenched, his breath coming faster and faster from his lungs. And, all beset as he was, knowing that death was near at hand, he whispered to himself "for her, for her."
Though once he thought, "'Tis better so, far better. Thus her way is clear, and she is free of me."
He forgot-he was mercifully permitted to forget for a moment that, free of him, she would still be open to Desparre's designs again, and might still be forced to marry him.
Yet, a moment later, the recollection of this sprang swiftly as a lightning flash to his mind. He must live for her, he must not be slain and thereby set her free for Desparre.
Nerved afresh to his task by this memory, he fought with renewed energy-fought like a tiger at bay, determined that, even though he fell, he would not fall alone; that he would have some more companions on the dark road he must go, as well as the man now dead at his feet.
"Two," he muttered through his set teeth as, darting like an adder's fang, his rapier passed through a second man's breast-bone when, with a yell of agony, the archer fell at his feet. "Two. Who next?"
But still there were three to contend with, Vandecque, an archer, and an exempt. And these two were raining blows at him, while the gambler's sword was making pass after pass-it being caught once in the folds of the cloak over his left arm and missing once his left breast by an inch, while ripping open the coat and waistcoat as it darted by. Then, as he warded off another swinging blow from the archer's weapon, he knew the time had come. His rapier was cleft in twain by the heavier metal of the other blade-his hand held nothing but the hilt and a few inches of sundered steel.
With a fierce exclamation he flung himself full at the man who had disabled him, seized him by the throat ere he could swing his cutlass again, and dashed with awful force the remnant of his sword in his face, inflicting a frightful wound and battering the features into an unrecognisable mass.
Yet, as he did so, he uttered a terrible moan himself and reeled back heavily against the wall, sliding a moment after down it and rolling to the ground. Vandecque's rapier was through his left lung, an inch below the shoulder. The fight was finished.
"Is he dead?" that ruffian heard a harsh, raucous voice whisper as he drew his sword from the other's body. "Is he dead?" while, turning, he saw the cadaverous face of Desparre peering over his shoulder at their victim.
"Dead," he replied breathlessly. "Mon Dieu! I hope so. Were he not, we should all have been dead ourselves ere long. And then-then-he might have found you out in your hiding-hole."
CHAPTER IX
ALONE
Laure scarcely moved for an hour after Walter had left her, but still sat upon the couch, gazing into the wood fire-musing always.
Sometimes on the sacrifice this man had made; more often on the profound depths of that sacrifice.
For it had in its depth that which she had never dreamed of; it had taken a shape she had never looked for.
When he brought her to this apartment she had supposed that, from this day, there was to commence a loveless life such as was so often witnessed in the marriages of convenience with which she was familiar enough in Paris; she had, indeed, told herself that she had escaped one sacrifice only to become the victim of another.
She had escaped Desparre, only to become tied to this Englishman for ever; an escape for the better, it was true, since he was young and manly, while Desparre was old and-worse-depraved. But, still, a sacrifice.
Yet, never had she dreamt of aught like this: of a marriage gone through by him which was, in truth, all a sacrifice on his part but none on hers. For he was bound to her for ever, and he asked nothing from her in return. Not so much as a word of love, a look, a thought; nothing! Nothing, though he knew by her confession that she was a nameless, an abandoned child: the offspring of Shame! Yet he had taken her for his wife.
As she meditated upon it all, her eyes still watching the logs as they smouldered on the hearth, there rose into her mind a reflection which-because she was a woman-was more painful than any that had previously possessed it. The thought that this was no marriage of love on his part, no clutching by him at the one opportunity that had arisen of gaining her for his wife, and, with that gain, the other opportunity of, in time, drawing her to him, but, instead, was simply the fulfilment of a word promised and given a year ago, the redemption of that which was in his eyes as a bond. He had told her once-a year ago-that all he asked was to be allowed to be her servant, her champion, her sentinel; and now the opportunity had come to prove his word. That was all! And she, reflecting, recalling other Englishmen whom she had met or heard of, who were living a life of exile in Paris, remembered how they all prided themselves above aught else upon the sacredness with which they regarded their word when once passed-how, amongst all other men, they were renowned for keeping that word. He would have kept his, she thought sorrowfully, with any other woman as equally well as with her, simply because he had given it.
Why the tears dropped from her eyes as she still mused and still gazed into the dying embers, she could scarcely have told herself; all she did know was that, gradually, a resolve was forming in her heart, a determination that all the nobility should not be with him alone. On her side also there should be, not a sacrifice-remembering what she was, she dared not deem it that-but, at least, a reciprocity. If he loved her still, if what he had done had not been prompted alone by that sense of honour which governed all his countrymen's actions, then he should have the reward that was his due. True or false as the statement might be, she would declare that she loved him.
"Why not?" she whispered to herself. "Why not? Whom have I ever seen or known more worthy of my love? Ah!" she murmured, "return, return, my husband, that I, too, may make confession."
The winter night was come now, though from the churches near by the hour of five was but striking. The Rue de la Dauphine was very still, while yet, from a distance, there came the hum of many noises. She knew that Paris was in a feverous state at this time, that Law's bubble was bursting, that the Regent's popularity was gone, that the boy-king's throne was in danger. And the archers, and the exempts, and provost-marshal's guards were in these streets, carrying off the turbulent ones to the many prisons of Paris, shooting them down sometimes-as the report of a discharged carbine now and again testified-clubbing them and beating out their brains as the most sure way of preventing resistance.
Yet, amidst this distant noise which sometimes disturbed the quiet street at intervals, her ears caught now a footstep outside the door-the footsteps, indeed, of more than one person, as well as a whispering that mixed itself and mingled with her own murmur of "Return, my husband." So that she wondered if her wish was granted, if he had returned, and was giving the concierge further orders in a low tone that she might not be disturbed; or if he was saying "Good night" to some friends-perhaps to those two other Englishmen who that day had witnessed their marriage.
Then the door opened, and a man came in. A man who was not her husband, but, instead, he who expected to have been that husband-the Duc Desparre!
With a cry-a gasp that was half a shriek-she rose and stood facing him, the table, to one side of which he had advanced, being between them. Facing him, with her hand upon her heart,
"You!" she exclaimed. "You here?"
Even as she spoke she wondered what possessed, what ailed the man; he was so changed since the time when last she had seen him. He had thrown back the cloak in which he had been muffled against the wintry air; while, because the habits of the courtier and the gentleman-or, at least, the well-bred man-were strong upon him, he had also removed his hat. He had come, he stood before her, she knew and felt, as an avenger; but he had been of the great Louis' time and the instincts of that period could not be put aside or forgotten.
Yet his appearance, the change which she noticed in him since they had last met and she had listened to his hateful wooing, was terrible. His face was white and drawn; the lines left by a dissolute life, perhaps also by the rough life of a soldier-lines which had always been strong and distinct-showed more plainly now; the eyes glistened horribly. But, worse than all, more terrifying to behold than aught else, were the twitchings of the muscles of his face and the shaking of the long brown hand which was lifted now and again to that face, as though to still the movement of his lips.
"Yes," he said, and she started as he spoke, for the voice of the man was changed also; had she not stood before him she would scarce, she thought, have known to whom it belonged. "Yes. We had to meet again, Laure-Madame Clarges. To meet again. Once. Once more."
"Why?" she gasped. In truth, the girl was appalled, not only by his presence there, but by his dreadful appearance, his indistinct, raucous voice and shaking hands.
"Why! You ask why? Have you forgotten? We-were-to-have-been-made-man and wife-this morning. Yet-"
"By no consent of mine," she cried, interrupting him and speaking rapidly, "but of him-my uncle, my guardian. God! my guardian! My guardian!" Then she continued, more calmly, "Yes, we were to have been married thus: I to be sold; you to buy. Only, I did not choose it should be so. Instead-"
"Instead," he replied, interrupting in his turn, "you married another-thereby to escape me. I-I-hope-you do not love him very dearly. Not, for-instance, more than, than you loved me?"
For a moment she paused ere answering, wondering dimly what lay beneath his words, what threat was implied in them; but, still, with a feeling of happiness unspeakable that now, at this moment, her opportunity had come to fulfil some part of that reciprocity she had resolved on. Even though he, her husband, could not hear the words, she uttered them plainly, distinctly.
"Your hope is vain. I love my husband."
His shaking hand, clutching now at the table, shook even more than before. For some time he essayed ineffectually to speak. Then, as once more he appeared to be obtaining the mastery over his voice, she resumed:
"Why do you come here? What do you require? Between us there is nothing in common. Nothing. You had best leave me."
"Not yet. There is something further to be said-to be done."
And now he mastered himself with some great effort, so that, for a time, he was coherent, intelligible; and continued:
"Listen," he said. "You did not love me. I knew that well enough, I cared little enough upon that score. Yet I needed a wife; it pleased me-for a reason other than your beauty-to select you. I announced to all whom it concerned that I had done so. As for love, that had little part or parcel in the matter. There was no more love-passion is not love-in my heart for you than in yours for me. I have passed the time for loving any woman; but-"
"Why, then," she asked, gazing at him, "seek me?"
"Because I am the bearer of a great name, a great fortune. Because I despised the members of my family-they are all intriguing harridans who formerly despised me. Because I sought a woman at once beautiful, yet lowly, who should arouse equally their envy and their hate; who should sting these women to madness with mortification. That is why I selected you."
"You may now select another," she replied coldly. "Doubtless there are many to whom the holder of so great a name, so great a fortune, will prove acceptable."
"I shall not select another. Meanwhile, you have flouted me, exposed me to the ridicule of the whole court-me, Desparre-of the whole of Paris! Do you think that is to be quickly forgotten, overlooked? Do you think that I, Desparre, will do either?"
"You must do what seems best to you," she said, still coldly. "Monsieur le Duc, I am not your wife. What you may choose to do is of absolute indifference to me."
He became, if such a thing were possible, more white than before. Once his eye glanced at a chair close by as though he felt he must drop into it; yet he forbore. Instead, planting both his shaking hands on the table, he said:
"The trick was clever that you played. Yet-as you should know, you who haunted the gambling-hells of Paris with your precious guardian-you should know that, however clever a trickster may be, there is generally one to be found who is his master. Always. Always. He always finds his master, does that trickster. Shall I tell you of a cleverer trick than yours?"
"What-what do you mean?"
"Attend. You hear that noise in the next street; do you know what it is? It is the archers and the exempts carrying of people to prison who are supposed to be insurgents, uprisers against the King, the Regent-the 'System.' Many of those persons are quite innocent, they are simply passers-by seeking their homes. Still, they have, some of them, enemies, people whom they have wronged, perhaps even inadvertently; yet the wronged ones have now their hour. A purse-a very light one-dropped into an archer's or an exempt's hands-a hint-a name-an address-and-that is all! To-night the prisons, La Force, La Pitié, La Tournelle-the Bastille; to-morrow the false accusations-a month later the wheel, or, at best, the Mississippi, the Colonies. And-and-my purse is not light."
"Devil!" she murmured. "Devil incarnate!"
"Ay, an aroused one. Yet, 'tis your own doing. You should have thought, you should have reflected. Desparre's name was known in those choice circles which you and Vandecque affected-in your own gambling hell. Had you ever heard it coupled with so weak a quality as forgiveness for an insult, a slight? Nay, madame, nay! None can prevent either insult or slight being offered-it is only the weak and powerless who do not retaliate. And I, Desparre, am neither." While, once more, as he spoke, the twitchings of his face presented a terrible sight.
"You mean," she said, staring at him as one stares who is fascinated by some horror from which, appalling as it is, the eyes cannot be withdrawn, "you mean that this retaliation is to be visited on me. On me-or, perhaps, one other. The man who enabled me to escape you-on my husband?"
"I mean precisely that. On you. Yet without my purse's weight being much tested, either. For against you, madame, I have legal claims that will, I fear, prevent you from enjoying your new-found happiness for some time, even were your husband able to share it with you, which he is not-"
He stopped. For as he uttered those last words, "which he is not," she had moved from the position in which she had stood all through the interview; she had quitted that barricade which the table made between them; she was advancing slowly round it to him. In her eyes there was a light that terrified him; on her face a look at which he trembled more than even his rage and unstrung nerves had previously caused him to do. For, now, he saw that the victim was an equal foe-that the aroused woman had changed places with him and was calling him to account, instead of being called to account herself.
"Speak!" she said; her voice low, yet clear, her eyes blazing, her whole frame rigid, "speak. Have done with equivocation, with hints and threats. Speak, villain. Answer me." While, as she herself spoke, she raised her hand and pointed it at him. "You say he cannot share my new-found happiness with me. Answer me! Why can he not? Two hours ago he was here, with me, in this room. Where is he now?"
Standing before her, his eyes peering at her-ghastly, horrible; upon his face a look that was half a leer and half a snarl, he essayed to tell her that which he had come to say. Yet, at first, he could utter no word-almost it seemed to him as though he was suffocating, as though his gall were rising and choking him. Yet, still, there was the woman before him, close to him, her hand outstretched, her eyes glaring into his. Again, too, he heard her words:
"My husband! Villain! Scoundrel! Answer me. Where is my husband?"
Then his voice came to him, though it seemed to her as though it was the voice of one whom she had never known. At last he spoke.
"He is dead," he said, "Half an hour ago. Slain by my orders. Dead. My wrong, my humiliation is avenged."
With a cry she sprang at him, frenzied, maddened at his words; her hands at his throat, as though she would throttle him.
"Murderer!" she shrieked. "Murderer! By your orders-By your orders-By-"
Yet, even as she spoke, the shaking assassin before her seemed to vanish from her sight, the room swam before her and became darkened; with a moan she sank swooning to the floor, forgetting, oblivious of, all.
"Come in," said Monsieur le Duc a moment later, as he opened the door and showed a white face to those waiting without. "Come in. She is quite harmless. Now is your time."
CHAPTER X
THE PRISON OF ST MARTIN DES CHAMPS
The agreeable ceremony of marrying the prisoners to one another, ere despatching them to Louisiana as convicts, was going on rapidly in the yard of the Prison of St. Martin des Champs on a sunny morning of the May which followed the ruin of Law's system; the paternal government being under the impression that it was far better for moral purposes-always matters of great importance in France! – that the new tillers of the soil should go out as married couples.
Moreover, the Government were a little embarrassed as to what they should do with all the convicts with which the numerous prisons of Paris were stuffed, since, at this period, there was no opportunity of drafting the men off into regiments, nor of utilising the services of the women. France was ruined-consequently she was not at war just now with any Power-while she had no money with which to keep her convicts hard at work. But (the idea having entered Law's fertile brain ere he prepared to flee) it was thought that Louisiana might still be made of some service to the Mother Country if her soil could be utilised, and, since there were no capitalists left of the original order and, if there had been, none who would embark their capital in that region, the Government had decided on peopling the place with fresh batches of convicts. Thus they attained a double object; they emptied their prisons and they provided a population for New France-a population which, since it was free and absolved from all further punishment of its past crimes, might, on reaching the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, flourish and do well, or, since both the Indians and the neighbouring English colonists were very troublesome, might be swept off the face of the earth. But, even in the event of such a lamentable catastrophe as this, they would, after all, be only ex-convicts whose loss could be supplied by fresh relays.
Now, on this morning, it had come to the turn of the Prison of St. Martin des Champs to be relieved of some of its inhabitants, while, previous to their despatch to La Rochelle, and, in some cases, even Marseilles, Toulon, and Cette (to which places they would have to walk in chain-gangs, thereby to reach the convict transports), the marriage ceremony was taking place between those who were willing to be united together, and the governor and the chaplain were both in the yard ready to officiate at the ceremony.
"Listen," said the chaplain, addressing the gaol birds who were blinking in the rays of the bright morning sun-an unaccustomed sight to them, since many of their numbers had been for months buried in dark underground cells, attached each to a block of wood by the humane process of having a chain passed round their throats which was stapled on to the beam behind. "Listen, while I expound to you the law by which you now practically become free men and women once more." While, as he spoke, he turned his eyes and bobbed his head to the right where the men were huddled together, and to the left where the women were. "Free to become wealthy colonists and planters; married men and women instead of cutpurses and outcasts, or lost women. Listen, I say."
"Ohé!" muttered one of the women, while almost all the others laughed and grimaced, except two or three who scowled at the chaplain and the governor and ground their teeth savagely together. "Ohé! hark to him. Lost women! Think of that! The rogue! Who knows more of such unhappy ones than the reverend father? Mon Dieu My sisters! You remember?"
"Silence," bellowed the chaplain, who seemed a more important man than the governor at this juncture, "silence, and listen to the law as expounded by me and passed," the latter part of the sentence being delivered as though of secondary importance-"by his Highness the Regent. This is it."
Then, having cleared his throat, he began again: —
"All who leave by the transport ships from La Rochelle, Marseilles, Cette, Toulon, Dunkirk, or Brest go forth as prisoners already pardoned and absolved from a shameful yet well-deserved death; absolved and pardoned from that most meritorious penalty, I say, yet still prisoners and convicts. Yet, now, see what a noble and forgiving Government does for you all, fruit of the Abbey of Mount Regret3 as you are. As you step upon the shores of New France your chains will fall away from you; you will be free; you will become honourable citizens once more of the noblest country in the world, with a vast continent before you on which Nature has poured out her most bounteous treasures-all for you."
"But how to obtain them, Roger, my friend?" screamed a bold-faced, black-eyed young woman, who had evidently known the chaplain under other circumstances than the present. "Tell us that," and she laughed a strident laugh.
"Silence, wretch," again bawled the chaplain, whereat the woman laughed once more derisively. "Silence, creature. It is to tell you this-and for other things-that I am here after a night of fasting and prayer. On landing, to each man will be allotted plots of the most excellent fertile ground, either on the banks of the Mississippi, the Fiore, the Ste. Susanne, the Trinité, or the Boca-Chica rivers." All these names he read from a paper in his hand. "To each married couple-remember this, you abandoned ones, who have hitherto despised and scoffed at the holy bonds of matrimony, into which I now invite you who are still unwed to enter-a treble plot. Also tools for husbandry and the building of houses, barns, and sheds. Also," he went on with great volubility, still glancing at the paper in his hand, "a musket to each man, a sufficiency of powder and shot for the slaying of wild beasts; though not those of your own kind," he added, remembering, doubtless, their proclivities. Then, his recollection of their lawless natures prompting him again, he also added. "For if you slay one another you will undoubtedly be executed. Therefore, take heed, and if the beasts of the forest offer not sufficient killing to your murderous and unregenerate natures, why! assist in exterminating the natives who, being not yet baptised and received into the bosom of our Holy Mother Church, are not to be accounted human. Then, there are the English from neighbouring settlements who war with and dispute the power of France in their insolence. Those, too, you may slay and despatch-if-if they give you fair cause, which undoubtedly their fierce and brutal nature will prompt them to do."
"But how to live?" asked one man, an enormous and cruel-looking ruffian; "how to live, Father Roger, until the land yields the wherewithal?"
"Listen, and you will learn. On arriving, you will be sent to that noble town now rising as a monument of France's greatness; the town of new Orleans, so named after our pious and illustrious Regent. 'Tis but eighteen miles from where you will land, if the captains of the transports arrive at the proper spot; a morning's walk. There you may earn money by assisting in laying out the streets, building the houses, making yourself useful. Work half the day at this, devote the other half to attending to your allotted settlements, if they are near at hand; otherwise, if they are afar off, work one week at New Orleans, another at your plantations; and, thereby, shall you grow rich and prosperous. 'Tis not hard to do, and, if it is, why, 'tis better than a roadside gallows, a prison cell, or the wheel-any of which you have all deserved."
Whether he knew what he was talking about, or whether he knew how impracticable were the schemes he propounded, cannot be told. It was sufficient that, at least, the vagabonds before him knew no better than he did, and, at any rate, he spoke truly in one particular-to whatever life they went forth, it must be better than death on the gallows or the wheel. And as they listened, they told each other that, at the worst, they would be free and at liberty to commence a new life of preying on their fellow creatures, if there were any worth preying on.
"Now," the chaplain continued hastily, for a glance at the prison clock showed him that the time for his midday meal was approaching-a meal at which he generally ate heartily, since, from various causes, he was ever a poor breakfaster; "now for the holy and irrevocable bond of marriage to which I invite you to enter, so that, thereby, you shall all lead a life of propriety and decency-which, as yet, none of you have ever done! – and shall also increase the population of New France. Therefore, stand forth, first, all you who are agreed on marriage; after which those who are not yet affianced unto one another can select spouses according to their tastes. Stand forth, I say, you who are agreed."
Forth, at his bidding they came, many of them having already decided on becoming united, since it seemed that those who were married might derive more advantage from their emigration than those who were single; and because, also, all in their own minds had decided that, once in the foreign land to which they were going, the tie might easily be broken if they got sick of it. Therefore they stood before him, ready.
They were a strange, vile-looking crowd, such as, perhaps, no other state of society but that which prevailed in the last days of the Regency of Philip of Orleans could have produced. All were not of the lowest orders; some there were who had commenced life in circumstances which should almost have warranted them against ever coming to such case as they were now in. The chaplain's list contained their names-or such names as they chose to be known by-as well as their prison numbers; it contained, too, information as to where other particulars could be gathered. And in that list was an account of what crimes they were condemned for.
Among the men, most had been convicted of robbery, accompanied generally with violence; one had slain a youth in a gambling hell, or tripot, after cheating him; another had drugged a friend and robbed him; a third had broken into a church and stolen the sacred vessels; a fourth had beaten a priest; a fifth had throttled his wife. While, also, there were others convicted and sentenced to the gibbet or the wheel for crimes which, besides these, seemed trifling: a shop boy who had robbed his master: a master who had starved his shop boy to death; a vicomte who had embezzled the trust money of a ward and lost it all in the "System;" a clerk who had stolen money to indulge in loose pleasures, and a literary man who had written against the doctrines of Rome and had called her Babylon, he being prosecuted by the Cardinal Dubois of pious life!
The women were, however, the greater sinners, besides being also better educated in most cases, and, likewise, more hardened and defiant. One was beautiful, her golden hair being knotted now behind her head-wigs in the Prison of St. Martin des Champs were, naturally, superfluous! – her eyes as blue as the cornflower, large, limpid, and full of innocence; yet she had murdered her husband and her husband's mother to marry a man who, from the moment she was arrested, had never come near her nor sent her word nor message, nor money for her defence. She was now about to marry the embezzling vicomte. Next to her there stood, ready to bestow herself on the literary man, a woman who was her exact opposite, a creature black and swarthy, yet with the remains of magnificent florid beauty in her dissolute face; a woman born beneath the warm sun of Hérault. She, too, had committed secret murder on one who had wronged her; yet now she was to be married. And, sometimes, as he glanced at her who in a few moments would be his wife, the literary man who boasted that he had made Pope Clement tremble trembled himself.
The others were all more or less alike; lost women, as Roger, the priest had said-one of them was about to espouse the shop boy-young viragoes, robbers of drunken men, and so forth. And all meant to lead a new life in a new land, though not perhaps the manner of life which the priest had so unctuously described.
"Stand forth," he said again now, for the clock had struck twelve and his onion soup and stewed mutton were ready.
"Stand forth in front of me. Prepare to enter the Holy State." Whereupon he rapidly ran his eye over the paper in his hand, compared the numbers by which the convicts were known in the prison with the names they had been tried under, and then, exhorting them to attend to the ceremony in a decent and reverent attitude, he proceeded to make each two into one.
Yet before he did so he gave them one last salutary admonition, one paternal warning. "Remember," he said, "that this is no idle ceremony to be gone through carelessly, but an entrance into the honourable state of matrimony; an espousal of each other as binding on you by the laws of the land as though it had taken place at the altar of Notre Dame, and been performed by Monseigneur the Archbishop. Pause, therefore, ere it is too late; before you pledge yourselves to one another; ransack your memories; be sure that none of you men have wives anywhere else; that none of you women-though, in truth, most of you have taken steps to make yourselves widows without the assistance of Fate-have husbands. For if any of you have such ties and the fact is ever discovered, nothing can save you again. Wherever you are, in France or her colonies, you will most assuredly be executed, for such is the punishment of bigamy as laid down by his late most sacred Majesty, urged thereto by the pious Madame de Maintenon. I have warned you. Turn your eyes inwards," and as he spoke he cast his own eyes over the convicts before him to see which of them trembled or turned pale. Doubtless there were some to whom the warning came home-amongst them there must of a surety have been some dissolute wives who had deserted their husbands, and selfish husbands who, having grown tired of supporting wives of whom they had sickened, had long disappeared from their knowledge-yet all were hardened and gave no sign of meditated bigamy. The New World was before them; their imaginations were inflamed with the hopes of, a fresh and more free life in New France, or elsewhere, if they could escape from the old world. If they had deserted a dozen wives, or husbands, each was now willing to accept another.