"You will be surprised to hear that your step-mother's brother has appeared on the tapis, and that he has had the audacity to propose to adopt Mabel, whom he claims as his niece.
"He seems a gentlemanly person enough, but may be an impostor for aught I know. The young lady he was engaged to, Gregory tells me, perished in the Kosciusko, which proves a relief, after all, as it is rumored he has a wife in Europe. But such gossip can hardly interest you very vividly. The man has gone to California, and will probably return no more.
"Did you, or did you not, meet this person at Colonel La Vigne's? Favraud hinted something of the kind when he was here; but I can get no satisfaction from Gregory.
"They all believe you were drowned in Georgia, and I thought it best for the present not to undeceive Favraud, who laments your fate.
"The surprise will be all the more pleasant; and, of course, every thing will be explained to the satisfaction of friends when you appear publicly as the wife of Luke Gregory—'long secretly married!' You see, it will be necessary to go back a little to save appearances, on account of Ernie!"
The miscreant! I understood him now—oh, my God, for strength to tear his cowardly heart from his truculent body! But no; let there be no further unavailing anger. In God's good time all should recoil on his own head. For the present, I must bear, and make myself insensible; if possible; and yet, I would not willingly have had the living greenness of my spirit turned to stone, as we are told branches are in some strange, foreign rivers—crystal-cold!
Another extract, the closing one, and then forever away with Basil Bainrothe and his flimsy letters:
"Again, I must congratulate you on the subdued and humbled temper you manifest. Claude, and Evelyn, and I, had just been discussing a plan for removing you to another asylum, where stricter discipline and less luxurious externals are employed to conquer the otherwise unmanageable inmates. Dr. Englehart, you know, holds up the theory of indulgence to his patients, and I am rejoiced to find his measures have at last prevailed over your frenzy. Mabel, like your other friends, believes you dead, and is at home with Evelyn and Claude, and is growing in beauty and intelligence every day.
"She was quite shocked at her uncle's wild behavior, and positively refused to go with him, is fond of Mr. Gregory, and remembers you with affection.
"Owing to my knowledge of your condition for the last year, my dear child, I don't blame you for any thing that is past, not even for those delusions with regard to my own acts and intentions which formed your mania, nor for the misfortune and sense of shame which, no doubt, caused your hasty flight, and whose evidences you brought with you from the raft, in the shape of a nearly year-old child.