For Love and Life Author:Margaret Oliphant Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 45 CHAPTER III. IN THE DEPTHS. NEXT morning he went first to his old lawyer, in whom he had confidence, and having copied the certificate, carefully cha... more »nging the names, submitted it to him. Mr. Parchemin declared that he knew nothing of Scotch law, but shook his head, and hoped there was nothing very unpleasant in the circumstances, declaring vehemently that it was a shame and disgrace that such snares should be spread for the unwary on the other side of the border. Was it a disgrace that Arthur Arden shouldnot have been protected in Scotland, as in England, from the quick-wittedness of the girl whom he had already cheated and meant to betray? Edgar felt that there might be something to be said on both sides of the question, as he left his copy in Mr. Parchemin's hands, who undertook to consult a Scotch legal authority on the question ; then he went upon his other business. I need not follow him through his manifold and perplexing inquiries, or inform the reader how he was sent from office to office, and from secretary to secretary, or with what loss of time and patience his quest was accompanied. After several days' work, however, he ascertained that the chapel in Hart Street had indeed been licensed, but only used once or twice for marriages, and that no record of any such marriage as that which he was in search of could be found anywhere. A stray record of a class-meeting, in which Emma Lockwood had been admonished for levity of demeanour, was the sole mention of her to be found; andthough the officials admitted a certain carelessness in the preservation of books belonging to an extinct chapel, they declared it to be impossible that such a fact could have been absolutely ignored. There was, indeed, a rumour in the denomination that a local preacher had been found to ha...« less