The lawyer had carefully gathered all the necessary links of evidence, and was prepared to bring suit against Cuthbert Laurance for desertion and bigamy; assuring the long-suffering wife that her name and life would be nobly vindicated.
Within his letter was one addressed to Mrs. Orme by Peleg Peterson, and a portion of the scrawl was heavily underlined.
"For all that I have revealed to Mr. Palma and solemnly sworn to, for this clearing of your reputation, you may thank your child. But for her, I should never have declared the truth—would have gone down to the grave, leaving a blot upon you; for my conscience is too dead to trouble me, and I hate you, Minnie! Hate you for the wreck you helped to make of me. But that girl's white angel face touched me, when she said (and I knew she meant it), 'If I find from mother that you are indeed my father, then I will do my duty. I will take your hand—I will own you my father—face the world's contempt, and we will bear our disgrace together as best me may.' She would have done it, at all risk, and I have pitied her. It is so clear her, and give her the name she is entitled to, that at last I have spoken the truth. She is a noble brave girl, too good for you, too good for her father; far too good to own René Laurance for her grandfather. When he sees the child he paid me to claim, he will not need my oath to satisfy him that in body she is every inch a Laurance; but where she got her white soul God only knows—certainly it is neither Merle nor Laurance. You owe your salvation to your sweet, brave child, and have no cause to thank me, for I shall always hate you."
Had some ministering angel removed from her hand the hemlock of that loathsome vengeance she had contemplated, and substituted the nectar of hope and joy, the renewal of a life unclouded by the dread of disgrace that had hung over her like a pall for seventeen years? When gathering her garments about her to plunge into a dark gulf replete with seething horror, a strong hand had lifted her away from the fatal ledge, and she heard the voice of her youth calling her to the almost forgotten vale of peace; while supreme among the thronging visions of joy gleamed the fair face of her blue-eyed daughter. Had she been utterly mad in resolving to stain her own pure hand by the touch of René Laurance?
In the light of retrospection the unnatural and monstrous deed she had contemplated, seemed fraught with a horror scarcely inferior to that which lends such lurid lustre to the "Oedipus;" and now she cowered in shame and loathing as she reflected upon all that she had deliberately arranged while sitting upon the terrace of the Villa Reale. Could the unbridled thirst for revenge have dragged her on into a monomania that would finally have ended in downright madness? Once nominally the wife of the man whom she so thoroughly abhorred, would not reason have fled before the horrors to which she linked herself? The rebellious bitterness of her soul melted away, and a fervent gratitude to Heaven fell like dew upon her arid stony heart, waking words of penitence and praise to which her lips had long been strangers.
Adversity in the guise of human injustice and wrong generally indurates and embitters; and the chastisements that chasten are those which come directly from the hand of Him "who doeth all things well."
When Mrs. Waul came back Mrs. Orme was still kneeling, with her face hidden in her arms, and the letters lying beside her. Laying her wrinkled hand on the golden hair, the faithful old woman asked:
"Did you hear from your baby?"
"Oh! I have good news that will make me happy as long as I live. I shall soon see my child; and soon, very soon, all will be clear. Just now I cannot explain; but thank God for me that these letters came safely."
She rose, put back her hair, and rapidly glanced over two other letters, then walked to and fro, pondering the contents.