Mrs. Force was the first one to break the painful silence.
“Then it was all true as to the date of Anglesea’s first wife’s death?” she inquired, in a faint voice.
“The date on Lady Mary’s tombstone is August 25, 18—,” gloomily replied Mr. Force.
“Then the man’s marriage with Mrs. Wright on the first of the same August is invalid?”
“As a matter of course.”
“And the ceremony begun, but not completed, with our daughter in the following December gives Anglesea a shadow of a claim on Odalite?”
“A shadow of a claim only; yet a sufficiently dark and heavy and oppressive shadow. And now, dear Elfrida, let us talk of something else,” said Mr. Force, gravely.
“First, tell me about that fraudulent obituary notice in the Angleton Advertiser. Did you find out how it was effected?” inquired the lady.
“Yes. On the evening of the twentieth of August, after the last copy of the paper had been printed, and the whole edition sent off to its various subscribers, the editor and proprietor, one Purdy, went home, leaving the type undistributed on the press, and his pressman, one Norton, in charge of the office. There was, besides, the editor’s young son, whom Norton sent away. Later in the evening this Norton distributed the type on the first two columns of the first page, and then was joined by Angus Anglesea, who had furnished the manuscript for the false obituary notice, and had bribed the printer to set it up and print it off. So then several copies of the paper were thrown off, in all respects like unto the regular edition of the day, with the exception of the first two columns, in which the false obituary notice and memoir were substituted for the report of an agricultural fair, or something of the sort. And these last fraudulent copies were mailed at different times to me. You see the motive! It was to entrap and humiliate us. The same night, or the next morning, Norton absconded with the bribe he had taken from Anglesea.”
“You know this to be true?”