When the letters of Peterson and of the lawyer were read, mapping the line of prosecution for the recovery of the wife's rights, the father slowly raised his eyes, and, looking drearily at his son, muttered:
"It is all over with us, Cuthbert. She has won; we are ruined. Let us go home."
He attempted to rise, but with a glare of mingled wrath and scorn his son held him back.
The last scene was reached; the triumphant vindication of wife and child, the condemnation of the two who had conspired to defraud them, the foreclosure of the mortgages, the penury of the proud aristocrats, and the disgrace that overwhelmed them.
Finally the second wife and afflicted child came to crave leniency, and the husband and the father pleaded for pardon; but with a malediction upon the house that caused her wretchedness, the broken-hearted woman retreated to the palatial home she had at last secured, and under its upas shadow died in the arms of her daughter.
Her play contained many passages which afforded her scope for the manifestation of her extraordinary power, and at its close the people would not depart until she had appeared in acknowledgment of their plaudits.
Brilliantly beautiful she looked, with the glittering light of triumph in her large mesmeric eyes, a rich glow mantling her cheeks, and rouging her lips; while in heavy folds the black velvet robe swept around her queenly figure. How stately, elegant, unapproachable she seemed to the man who leaned forward, gazing with all his heart in his eyes upon the wife of his youth, the only woman he had ever really loved, now his most implacable foe!
The audience dispersed, and Cuthbert and his father sat like those old Roman Senators, awaiting the breaking of the wave of savage vengeance that was rolling in upon them.
At length General Laurance struggled to his feet, and mechanically quitted the theatre, followed by his son. Reaching the carriage, they entered, and Cuthbert ordered the coachman to drive to Mrs. Orme's hotel.
"Not now! For God's sake, not to-night," groaned the old man.