Mrs. Force went up to her daughter, and said:

“Come with me to my own room. I have something to say to you.”

Odalite immediately followed her mother to that little parlor which had been the scene of so many critical interviews.

When the door was shut, and the mother and daughter were seated together before the fire, the lady inquired:

“Odalite, my love, what letter was that which you received by this morning’s mail, and put into your pocket the moment I joined you at the window?”

“Oh, mamma, it was a little note that would only have given you pain!” said Odalite, shrinking.

“Yet what was it? Tell me.”

“It was a letter from him, mother, written on Saturday morning, an hour before he sailed for Liverpool. It was directed on the outside to Miss Odalite Force, but, on the inside, to Mrs. Angus Anglesea.”

“The serpent! He knew full well that, if he had presumed to offer us such an affront as to give you his name where your father could see it, the insult would never have been permitted to reach your eyes! Where is the letter, Odalite? Let me see it.”

The girl took the paper from its envelope, and, in wrath and scorn, read as follows:

When Mrs. Force had read this delectable epistle, she tossed it into the fire, where it quickly blazed up and burned to ashes.

“There!” she said. “It is gone. Forget it, my dear. It was nothing but the vain boast of a brute, a coward and a braggadocio! He is on the ocean now, a fugitive from justice—yes, my dear, no less. He could not stay in this country without the danger of being prosecuted for bigamy, and sent to the State prison. He dared not stay and face that peril. In all human probability, we shall never see him again.”

“But, mamma, has he—can he have—any claim on me? He referred me to you for proof that he has. What proof did he mean, mamma?” pleaded the girl.

“I do not believe that he has any claims on you, Odalite,” gravely replied the lady.

“But, mamma, do you know that he has not?” inquired poor Odalite, in an access of anxiety.

“He has no claim that either the law or the gospel would sustain, or that your father would admit for a single instant.”

“Oh, mamma, but has he any? Oh, mother, dear mother, speak plainly to me! He referred me to you for proofs that the marriage of last Tuesday was a lawful one. What proofs? What did he mean, mother?” pleaded Odalite, wringing her hands in growing doubt and distress.

“He meant to brag, to boast, to threaten to make you grieve, fear and suffer—the brute, the poltroon, the miscreant!” hissed the lady, stamping her foot.

“But, mother—oh, mother—the proofs, the proofs he spoke of!” persisted Odalite, white with dread.

“They are no proofs of anything; but I will tell you what he was writing of. Two days after the scene at the All Faith Church, while your father and your cousin were both out, that outlying brigand seized the opportunity for which he had been watching, and came in here to see and threaten me.”

“Oh, mother, dear mother!” said Odalite, in tender compassion.

“Never mind, my child. He is away now, thank Heaven! His talk to me was all of a piece with his letters to you. That is enough to say about it—except that, during the interview, he told me something that I believe to be a mere tissue of falsehoods.”

“And what was that, mamma?”

“He told me—think of the audacity and shamelessness of such an avowal!—he told me that at the time he married the Widow Wright, at St. Sebastian, he had a wife living in London.”

“Oh, mother!” said Odalite, with a low cry of horror.

“To prove it, he took a slip of paper from his pocketbook, which he said was cut from the London Times, and which he said that he had received while staying at Niagara with us. It was, in fact, the notice of the death of his wife, and, if I remember rightly, it ran something like this:

“‘Died.—Suddenly, at Anglewood Manor, on August twenty-fifth, in the forty-ninth year of her age, Lady Mary, eldest daughter of the late and sister of the present Earl of Middlemoor, and wife of Col. the Hon. Angus Anglesea, late of the H.E.I.C.S.’

“There, Odalite, I have tried to reproduce from memory the proof that he produced to establish as facts that his first wife was living at the time of his marriage with the Widow Wright, which was, consequently, not binding, and that she died some months before his marriage with yourself, which is, according to him, lawful and binding.”

“Oh, mother—mother! There seems to be no doubt of it!” wailed Odalite, throwing her arms over the table and dropping her head upon it in a sudden collapse of despair.

“Even if there were no doubt about the matter—even if he has a legal claim upon you—it is not a moral or Christian one, but a technicality which your father will never admit, even if that man should dare to come back and urge it.”

“But, oh, mother, he will come back, some time, when he thinks the danger past, and he will put the screws upon you and me as he did before! He will make me declare that my happiness depends upon my reunion to him, my ‘legal husband.’ He will make you plead with my father to give me up without bringing the matter into court!” said Odalite, moaning, rather than speaking the words.

“Even if he should—even if you should declare that you wished to be reunited to that monster of wickedness, and even if I were to plead your cause, I tell you that your father would not only see you unhappy, but he would see you dead, before he would give you up to Angus Anglesea! He would prosecute him, and settle his claim in that way. But, Odalite, I do not believe that notice of his wife’s death to be just what it purported to be, or just what he represented it to be.”

“What do you mean, mother, dear? How can you doubt, when you yourself saw the printed slip, with name, place, day and date, family relations—all complete? Ah, me! I wish there was room for doubt!”

“There is wide room for doubt. The date of the day and of the month is given, but not the date of the year, in that slip; and I saw nothing but the slip, not the paper it was cut from. How, then, do I know that his first wife did not die on August twenty-fifth, two years ago, or ten years ago, instead of in August of this year? It would be like him to produce an old obituary notice for purposes of deception.”

“Oh-h-h!” exclaimed Odalite, as the new light of hope dawned on her mind.

“I confess that I did not think of this view of the case when he first showed me this notice, and, therefore, I was utterly bowed down by the sight of it. But now, the more I reflect upon it, the more convinced I feel that it was the notice of a death in an August of some previous year. Why, now I think of it, the very paper was soft and dark, and the printing was blurred, as by age and handling.”

“Oh, mother, if I could but be certain that I am free!” sighed Odalite.

“Be certain of this—that you are free from him. He dare not return to this country to annoy you. He may write you threatening letters. Put them in the fire, and forget them.”

“And—and—and—dear, true, noble Le!” sighed the girl.

“Of course, there must be no thought of an engagement between Leonidas and yourself. He has given me his word of honor that there shall not be. You may correspond as brother and sister; but his letters to you must, as a mere matter of prudence, come under cover to me. In three years Le will return to us. Much may happen in three years! But, in the meantime, oh, my daughter! ‘keep innocency!’”