Mr. Scarborough's Family

I shall marry no one but my wife. This was the doctrine which Mr. Scarborough had been preaching to himself for some forty years. ... [M]en's natures were all the same, and that we should presume, before the judgment-seat, that any woman was intended to live beyond her allotted years.

Greek-marriage concealment → deathbed orphans → will forgery → inheritance war → honor settlement = plot 84.

The Squire did not know that his wife was dead. When her letters did not reach him regularly, he fancied that some unusual accident had prevented them. But when the cessation continued for three weeks, he became uneasy.

Squire + Greek wife + English mother + Mountjoy/Youlgreave + Pell attorney + caring child + legal conspiracy = cast 87.

The truth was, that Mr. Scarborough felt that no human creature in his position ever had done the thing and confessed it, and so escaped with the excuse of being — honourable!

51 chapters, mid-period Trollope pace; legal thriller engine keeps advance = pace 80.

The Squire did not know that his wife was dead. When her letters did not reach him regularly, he fancied that some unusual accident had prevented them. But when the cessation continued for three weeks, he became uneasy.

Final Trollope — squire's tired honor, Pell's legal knots undone in residue = prose 90.

The Squire did not know that his wife was dead. When her letters did not reach him regularly... [I]t was his wife who was a Greek, and was living away under a Greek sunset.

Pre-1881 county family estate; Greek-island underwriters of bigamy; trustee-controlled annuities; Mountjoy's rustic folk = world 85.

There is, I think, no class of men in London who do their fellow-men a greater amount of injury than those who think themselves competent to advise on matrimonial affairs.

Premise declared inside opener — hook 90.

The Squire did not know that his wife was dead. When her letters did not reach him regularly, he fancied that some unusual accident had prevented them.

Legal mystery machinery inside inheritance novel; adultery through property fraud = innov 81.

Mr. Pell stood aghast as he heard the words spoken in low tones by the old man, and felt that he had done his friend wrong.

Honor pact satisfied; children graded by conduct not by parents' breach; squire posthumously safe = ending 85.