“I am going to ride over to Greenbushes this morning, sir; can I do anything for you before I go?” inquired Leonidas, entering the sanctum where the master of the house sat writing at his desk.

“My dear boy, is it absolutely necessary that you should go to Greenbushes to-day?”

“Oh, no, sir; not at all; nor will I go, if I can be of the least service to you by staying here.”

“I am expecting our rector this morning. I am hoping that he will bring me some decisive news from St. Sebastian that may end this terrible suspense.”

“‘Suspense,’ sir? Do you also think that there may be some doubt about the truth of Mrs. Anglesea’s story?”

“When I look at the woman, and think of the man, I can scarcely believe her to be his wife. Why, she is illiterate and ill bred to the lowest degree!”

“I think she is infinitely above him!” indignantly exclaimed Le.

“In point of honesty, yes; for he is as despicable a miscreant as ever lived; but, still, not likely to have married such a woman. And it may be possible that there was no California marriage at all. Therefore I feel very anxious to get this telegram.”

“But, sir, in case this woman who claims to be his wife has been deceived by a false marriage, and she is therefore not his wife, but his victim, and it should follow that the marriage ceremony performed yesterday should be legal——”

“It should not stand!” roared Abel Force, in sudden wrath. “It should be dissolved by law! In no case shall my daughter ever behold the face of that wretch again!”

“De Reberent Dr. Peters, sah, is waitin’ to see yer,” said Jake, putting his head into the door.

“Is there any one in the drawing room?”

“No, sah.”

“Then show Dr. Peters into the drawing room, and tell him that I will see him there in a moment.”

The man went to give his message.

Mr. Force put away his papers, locked his desk, and arose, saying:

“Come, Le; our suspense will be ended in another minute.”

“I have been in painful suspense,” answered the young man, as they went up the front hall, and entered the drawing room on the right hand side.

Dr. Peters arose and advanced to meet them.

“Good-morning, reverend sir; I am glad to see you. In one word, now: Have you an answer to your telegram?”

“Yes.”

“And what is it?”

“The marriage certificate shown you is genuine. It corresponds in every particular with the entry of the same date in the parish register of the church of St. Sebastian where the ceremony was performed.”

“Thank Heaven! then my daughter is free!” exclaimed Abel Force.

“Here is the telegram—a very lengthy but quite satisfactory one,” said the rector, drawing from his pocket a large coil of what looked like white measuring tape.

Abel Force took it and read it aloud. It need not be repeated here. Enough to say that it was conclusive.

“And the scoundrel knew that he had a living wife, when he led my daughter to the altar! Reverend sir, what should a father, in his righteous wrath, do with such a man?” demanded Abel Force, livid with rage.

“Leave him to the divine Providence,” reverently replied the rector.

Abel Force ground his teeth; he felt more like becoming a volunteer instrument of the vengeance of divine Providence.

“A Christian would curb his passion and let the evildoer go his way,” continued the rector.

“Then I am a sinner!” exclaimed Le, who had been turning red and white with every ebb and flow of emotion.

“A yielding to anger always tends to make bad worse,” said Dr. Peters.

“Uncle,” said Le—who always, it will be remembered, addressed his relative by this title—“have you any more commands for me?”

“No, my boy; I only wished you to stay to hear this telegram, if it should come. You have heard it, and now I will relieve you.”

“Yes, I have heard it! I have heard it! Good-day, uncle! Good-day, Dr. Peters!” said the young man, rising.

“When will you be back, Le?” inquired Mr. Force.

“Some time this evening, I hope, sir; but don’t wait for me,” replied the midshipman, and, with another bow, he left the room.

“What is that lad thinking of?” anxiously inquired the rector.

“Nothing unworthy of my ward, or your pupil, reverend sir, we may be sure of that!” replied the squire.

“Young blood is hot and hasty!” sighed the good man.

As he spoke, the door opened, and Mrs. Force entered.

“Good-morning, Dr. Peters! I have just met Leonidas Force, who told me of your arrival, as he hurried from the house, but told me no more. I could not restrain my impatience. What answer, if any, is there to the telegram?” she eagerly inquired.

They told her.

“Thank Heaven!” she exclaimed, fervently, clasping her hands and sinking into the chair just vacated by Leonidas.

The serious walks side by side with the farcical.

The door opened unceremoniously, and Mrs. Anglesea entered, shaking her skirts to shake off ends of soft twine and scraps of lint or paper that stuck to her dress, and exclaimed:

“Well, I’ve got through with helping the young uns to tie them parcels, and, Lord! wa‘n’t there a lot of them! And I come downstairs to look for the ole ’oman, and they told me she was in here ’long of the parson, so I knowed you had come about the telegraph message; and how do you do, sir, this morning? And I hope you find yerself very well, and it’s all right about the sitifikit and the parish register, eh?”

“They are all correct, madam, I believe—the certificate and the entries in the register perfectly corresponding,” replied Dr. Peters.

“Oh, I knowed that; I never expected nothing else, of course. I only wanted the ole folks here to be satisfied as the gal had no right to my ole man, and would only ruinate herself, if she took him.”

“Will you take a seat, ma’am?” inquired Mr. Force, rising and bringing forward a large, cushioned armchair.

“Lord, no! I don’t want to disturb you! I only come to hear the upshot of this business! I went in the kitchen just now, and asked the cook if I could help her, and she said no; but I saw a heap of currants and raisins on the table to be picked for the plum pudding, and now I am going to help her to do it, whether or no! Well, I reckon I shall stay ’long o’ you all till the spring, and try make myself useful and cheerful and contented, as it ain’t never no use crying for spilt milk; and, then, I reckon as I can’t get any of my money out’n that man—Lord! why, he’s gambled it all away long a-merry-ago! I’ll just go back to Wild Cats’, and open a miners’ boarding house! The boys won’t let me want! And I s’pose by the time I make another pile my rascal will be coming back to me, to get hold of it! For that’s the way they all do! But just let him, that’s all! The boys would give him a short trial and a long rope, you bet! You needn’t look so horrified, Mr. Parson. You just wait till some foreign beat comes and marries you, and then runs off with all your money, and then see how you’d feel!”

The aged husband of an old wife, the father of married sons and daughters, the grandfather of growing or grown-up boys and girls, could not, by any effort of imagination, put himself in the wrong wife’s case; so he only answered by a deprecating bow.

“Well, now I must be going, if I mean to pick them dried currants and raisins for the plum pudding!” said the intruder, and she left the room as suddenly and unceremoniously as she had entered.

“What do you think of our guest, Dr. Peters?” inquired Mrs. Force.

“A rough, untrained, but well-meaning, woman, I should say,” replied the rector.

“A mere good-natured animal, I should call her,” added the squire.

“My dear, have you got through with your accounts?” inquired the lady.

“Yes, for the present.”

“Then let us go into the parlor. It is so much pleasanter there. Come, Dr. Peters.”

They left the room, and went into the cheerful, little parlor, usually occupied by Mrs. Force, and having her worktable and low chair in the corner between the open wood fire and the side window, with its pleasant view of the lawn and the woods.

Scarcely were they seated, however, when little Elva came in, first gave her hand to the old minister, who drew her toward him and kissed her cheek, and then went to her mother, and said:

“Mamma, Odalite is wide, wide awake now. She has had some tea, and she wants to see you.”

“Very well, dear; I will go to her. You will excuse me, Dr. Peters?”

The rector replied with a bow and a smile.

The lady took the hand of the little girl, and they left the room together.

When they reached Odalite’s chamber, Mrs. Force was surprised to see her eldest daughter up and dressed, and sitting in the armchair before the fire.

“My darling, I am so glad to see you so well recovered!” exclaimed the lady, pressing a kiss upon the forehead of her child, and then drawing a chair and seating herself by her side.

“Mamma,” said Odalite, “I seem to have been in a trance, or a dream, ever since you gave me that composing draught! What was it—opium, hasheesh, amyle—what? And, mother, how much was real and how much was dream that I have passed through? It seems like the phantasmagoria of a midnight orgie—through which only one thing seems to stand out clearly—that I have had ‘some outlet through thunder and lightning’ into freedom! Mother, is it true? Am I free?”

“Yes, dearest dear, you are free!” replied the lady, in deep emotion.

“Oh, thank Heaven! Thank Heaven! Oh, I feel as if I could never thank Heaven enough!” exclaimed Odalite, convulsively clasping her hands.

There was silence between them for a few moments, and then Odalite, looking all around the room, and finding herself alone with her mother, dropped her voice to the tenderest murmur, and asked:

“But, mamma, sweet mamma, are you free? Are you free from that man’s threats and persecutions?”

“Ah, my dear, I do not know! I do not know!” sighed the lady.

“Then, darling mother, if you are not free, I am not. I am your bondsmaid, and I am your hostage to that man for your deliverance from him. I wish to be nothing else, mamma. I do wish to give my whole life, if it be necessary, to secure your peace of mind.”

“My own, own heavenly angel, the sacrifice will not be required. You have been once offered, and you have been wonderfully delivered. It is final, my darling. No victim was ever laid a second time upon the fire!”

“But yet you are not free, mamma?”

“I do not know. I cannot even conjecture what the monster’s next move may be. But I do know this—that, whatever he does, or attempts to do, he will not be permitted to touch you, or even to see or to speak to you again!”

“Oh, I should be overjoyed to hear that, if only you were free from him, sweet mother!”

“My darling, the arm that delivered you is not shortened that it cannot save. For, Odalite, whatever the instrument might have been, it was the hand of Providence that saved you.”

“I know it, mamma. And I will hope and trust. You never did any evil in your life. You have only suffered from evildoers. Why, on that account, should you continue to suffer? Yes, I will hope and trust. And, mamma, I have roused myself, and am going down to dinner to surprise papa. And then, oh, do let us try to recover the good, old days of peace and gladness that we had before the tempter and destroyer came. Who is downstairs besides our own family?”

“Dr. Peters is here. He brought confirmation of that monster’s Californian marriage.”

“Oh, I am very glad of that! I would have it confirmed and reconfirmed forever and ever. Who else is downstairs, mamma?”

“Mrs. Anglesea. Your father asked her to the house, that we might hear her statement in more detail. And she seems to like her quarters so well that I am inclined to think that she will stay just as long as she is permitted to do so.”

“Well, mamma, let her stay. Poor woman! To be deserted by her husband! Is she very unhappy?”

“Not she! I should say that she is the most happily constituted human being I ever saw. She has the soundest health, the finest appetite, the keenest senses and the dullest sensibilities that I ever heard of. She has no more sentiment than if she ran upon four feet, instead of two! Give her full bodily comforts and pleasures, which she can feel and enjoy, and she will be perfectly happy.”

“Oh, mamma, what a character!”

“But that she is very—what shall I say of her that will not seem harsh or uncharitable?”

“Very unsophisticated and very unconventional, mamma?” suggested Odalite.

“Yes, dear, that will do. But for those drawbacks, you may find her amusing.”

“But perhaps she is more amusing on account of those drawbacks, mamma,” suggested Odalite.

But her mother shuddered.

There was a little bustle at the chamber door, which opened suddenly.

Mrs. Force turned around, and exclaimed:

“Here comes Wynnette, delighted to see you up! And now, dear, I will leave you with your sister, and return to our visitors. You will be down to dinner, you say?”

“Oh, yes, mamma—certainly,” said Odalite.

Mrs. Force kissed her daughter, and left the room.

“Mrs. Colonel is a whole regiment, I tell you, Odalite!” she heard Wynnette say, as she closed the door.

Odalite kept her word, and joined her family and friends in the drawing room just before dinner.

Her father met her halfway across the room, kissed her, and led her to a chair by the fire.

The rector came and gravely congratulated her.

Joshua, the bulldog, who had followed her from the hall, came and laid his honest head on her lap.

Lastly, Mrs. Col. Anglesea drew a chair to her side, sat down in it, took her hand, looked tenderly in her eyes, and said:

“You’re not mad ’long o’ me, are you, honey, for coming and raising a big rumpus in the church and stopping of the marriage, are you, now?”

“Angry with you? No, indeed! I am more grateful to you than words can express!” impulsively exclaimed Odalite.

“That’s right! That’s the proper sperrit, that is! Why, Lord, he ain’t much, if he is a colonel into the army! It’s only the Injun Army, anyways! And we know what the Injuns is! Leastways, we know what the Injuns is here, and I don’t reckon they’re any better out yonder, t’other side of the world! No, honey, he ain’t much! Why, Lord, there are heaps of fine young fellows would be glad enough to get you! Why, there is that fine young fellow, that midshipman staying here! Why couldn’t you fancy him, now? And lots of others! Let alone taking up with a man older and uglier than your own fath—I mean, than the parson! You’ve no call to hang your harp on a willow tree, on account of the likes of him!”

“Indeed, ma’am, I do not in the least regret Col. Anglesea,” said Odalite, earnestly.

“Lord, don’t you, sure enough? Then you wa‘n’t so very fond of him, after all? Oh, bother! there’s that clang-clang of a dinner bell again!” said the speaker, stopping short in her speech.

“Shall I have the honor, madam?” inquired the master of the house, coming up and offering his arm to take her into the dining room.

The rector spent the evening at Mondreer, and then, as a snowstorm was threatened, he accepted his host’s and hostess’ invitation and stayed all night with them.

Leonidas Force did not return to Mondreer that evening, but the circumstance caused no surprise nor uneasiness, as the young master of Greenbushes was often detained by business to so late an hour that he spent the night at the place.