AN AMAZING MARRIAGE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1440, 5 October 1899, Page 14

AN AMAZING MARRIAGE.

REMARKABLE DIVORCE COURT STORY. A CAPTAIN'S ACT OF KNIGHT ERRANTRY. An amazing story was told in the Divorce Court recently, before Mr Justice Bucknill when the case of Adams v. Adams and Bell came on for hearing. Mr Inderwick, Q.C., who appeared for the petitioner,' Captain Wm. Augustus Adams, an officer in the sth Lancers said that in 1890 or 1891 petitioner made the acquaintance of a lady whose name had beST public property just at the present iSSaentr Mrs Howard Kingscote, whose - husband, Colonel Kingscote was; thericojjI mander of the Oxfordshire Light Iniantry. In 1894 Mrs Kingscote communicated to that a lady who was a connection of hers had got into very great trouble, : Sd was] liable to bankruptcy Proceedings "■■ and to criminal proceedings of vaiious characters, and that the only way in whicn : / ttes relative of hers could be relieved from her desperate position was to become a marrieTwoman. Mrs Kingscote desired ; Captain r Adams, in the goodness of his I heart, to marry this lady who was a widow, for the purpose of relieving her from this terrible position. Captain Adams agreed to do so, although at that : had never seen the lady, whom £Tsubsequently married.. introduced -to* her by Mrs They were married on November 7, 1894, -and it was arranged that the marriage should be simply for the purpose of relievingthe F, lady from her desperate position,,that they *ere not to live together, and that the lady was not to take the husbands name, k nor was she to ask-for support. They ;. never lived together, and twc> days after the marriage Captain Adams left for India StiTS raiment. Whilst there he re- : Sd a letter from his wife, asking if she 5 Sight join him. He wrote back, saying " certainly not, as such a thing was never by either of them. The : next thing that happened was that the colonel spoke to him, and told him that he received a letter from the lady's brother, who was also an army officer, to the effect that Captain. Adams had deserted his wife, and asked the colonel -to look . into the matter. Captain Adams told the polonel all the circumstances, whereupon the colonel said there was nothing against his conduct as an officer! and a gentleman. Captain Adams wrote to this effect to the ladyV brother, who was satisfied, and there the matter ended. Captain Adams came back to this country in 1897, and met his f wife. '• She told him she had become a. trained nurse, was living with a lady ot means, was perfectly comfortable, and did not desire to live with him. At a later period the captain learnt. that his wife had not been living properly, and he saw her at a solicitor's office, where she made a, statement to the effect that she had been ; visited by a gentleman, whose name she cave, and that she had, m fact, committed adultery with him. Captain Adams filed . a petition for divorce, but it was dismissed for want' of evidence. He went back to India, and when/he returned to England I again he heard that his wife had been seen

with the co-respondent Bell, about whom nothing was known. He had her watened, and in the result it was. ascertained that the co-respondent and respondent .were found living together at the Midland Hotel. Petitioner in his, evidence said that the woman whom he married was Mrs D^? 1 - inond. WblfL ■He -knew she was on che verge of bankruptcy, and he married her at the earnest request of Mrs; Kingscote to save her from:pecuniary rum. Colonel Kingscote said, to him: '■' You are not going to-do this?" and he replied, Yes, I am, if I can save this woman. It was arranged that he' and Mrs Drummond Wolff should never live together after the. marriage, and that she should never ask him for support. . A letter was read by counsel, written by respondent to petitioner, in which she said: " The marriage which took place between us was arranged by Mrs Howard Kingscote before you had seen me or I you. It -was undertaken to save me from the effects of a crime which I had committed. At that time I was heavily in debt, and I was threatened with bankruptcy, and also with worse trouble, because for the sake of Mrs Howard Kingscote I had committed perjury." Mr Inderwick here explained that Mi's Howard Kingscote, wishing to raise money, took this unfortunate lady before a Commissioner of Oaths, and she made an affidavit which was absolutely untrue. The letter went on: "At t<he request of Mrs Howard ii.ingscote, you went through the ceremony of marriage with me. You did it to save me. I have never been your wife except in name. You have sacrificed yourself for me, and you have behaved in a perfectly honourable way towards me, and I can never thank you enough for what you have done. I hone no one will ever misunderstand the facts of the caee. —Yours, STEPHANIE." Evidence was given from the Midland Hotel, proving the adulter.7, and his Lordship, in pronouncing a decree nisi, said that this was one of the strangest stories that had been told even in the Divorce Court. The conduct of petitioner was almost Quixotic, and the conduct of the lady who induced him to marry respondent was, to say the least, astounding. Nothing could be said against petitioner except that he was very ignorant of the ways cf the world. Nothing in the world had besn said or done by him inconsistent with the conduct of an English gentleman and an officer.