The question was:  How could Priam be trapped in the net of the law?  He had not committed bigamy.  He had done nothing.  He had only behaved in a negative manner.  He had not even given false information to the registrar.  And Dr. Cashmore could throw no light on the episode, for he was dead.  His wife and daughters had at last succeeded in killing him.  The judge had intimated that the ecclesiastical wrath of the Dean and Chapter might speedily and terribly overtake Priam Farll; but that sounded vague and unsatisfactory to the lay ear.

In short, the matter was the most curious that ever was.  And for the sake of the national peace of mind, the national dignity, and the national conceit, it was allowed to drop into forgetfulness after a few days.  And when the papers announced that, by Priam’s wish, the Farll museum was to be carried to completion and formally conveyed to the nation, despite all, the nation decided to accept that honourable amend, and went off to the seaside for its annual holiday.

The Will to Live

Alice insisted on it, and so, immediately before their final departure from England, they went.  Priam pretended that the visit was undertaken solely to please her; but the fact is that his own morbid curiosity moved in the same direction.  They travelled by an omnibus past the Putney Empire and the Walham Green Empire as far as Walham Green, and there changed into another one which carried them past the Chelsea Empire, the Army and Navy Stores, and the Hotel Windsor to the doors of Westminster Abbey.  And they vanished out of the October sunshine into the beam-shot gloom of Valhalla.  It was Alice’s first view of Valhalla, though of course she had heard of it.  In old times she had visited Madame Tussaud’s and the Tower, but she had not had leisure to get round as far as Valhalla.  It impressed her deeply.  A verger pointed them to the nave; but they dared not demand more minute instructions.  They had not the courage to ask for It.  Priam could not speak.  There were moments with him when he could not speak lest his soul should come out of his mouth and flit irrecoverably away.  And he could not find the tomb.  Save for the outrageous tomb of mighty Newton, the nave seemed to be as naked as when it came into the world.  Yet he was sure he was buried in the nave—­and only three years ago, too!  Astounding, was it not, what could happen in three years?  He knew that the tomb had not been removed, for there had been an article in the Daily Record on the previous day asking in the name of a scandalized public whether the Dean and Chapter did not consider that three months was more than long enough for the correction of a fundamental error in the burial department.  He was gloomy; he had in truth been somewhat gloomy ever since the trial.  Perhaps it was the shadow of the wrath of the Dean and Chapter on him.  He had ceased to procure joy in the daily manifestations of life in the streets of the town.  And this failure to discover the tomb intensified the calm, amiable sadness which distinguished him.