"He must be a pretty sort of fellow to let you go into the hospitals," said Heathcote, paying no heed to her threat. "I have your fatal marriage notice, Anne; I have always kept it."
"You have my marriage notice?" she repeated, startled out of her caution.
"Yes. Put your hand under my pillow and you will find my wallet; the woman of the house has skillfully abstracted the money, but fortunately she has not considered a newspaper slip as of any value." He took the case from her hand, opened it, and gave her a folded square paper, cut from the columns of a New York journal. Anne opened it, and read the notice of the marriage of "Erastus Pronando, son of the late John Pronando, Esquire, of Philadelphia, and Angélique, daughter of the late William Douglas, surgeon, United States Army."
The slip dropped from her hand. "Père Michaux must have sent it," she thought.
"It was in all the New York and Philadelphia papers for several days," said Heathcote. "There seemed to be a kind of insistence about it."
And there was. Père Michaux had hoped that the Eastern Pronandos would see the name, and, moved by some awakening of memory or affection, would make inquiry for this son of the lost brother, and assist him on his journey through the crowded world.
"I did not know that 'Anne' was a shortening of 'Angélique'; I thought yours was the plain old English name. But Helen knew; I showed the notice to her."
Anne's face altered; she could not control the tremor that seized her, and he noticed it.
"Are you not married then, after all? Tell me, Anne, tell me. You can not deceive; you never could, poor child; I remember that well."
She tried to rise, but he held her arm with both hands, and she could not bring herself to use force against that feeble hold.