CHAPTER VI
NEWS FROM COL. ANGLESEA
“What is it, my dear?” inquired her father, as Odalite, with trembling fingers, tore off the envelope and opened the paper.
“It—it is—it is postmarked Angleton,” she faltered.
“Angleton! Give it to me!” peremptorily exclaimed Abel Force, reaching his hand and taking the sheet from his daughter, who yielded it up and then covered her eyes with her hands, while her father examined the paper and her mother looked on with breathless interest.
“Thank Heaven!” exclaimed Abel Force, as his eyes were riveted on a paragraph he had found there.
“What—what is it?” demanded Elfrida Force, in extreme anxiety, while Odalite uncovered her eyes, and gazed with eager look and lips apart.
“A scoundrel has gone to his account! The earth is rid of an incubus! Listen! This is the Angleton Advertiser of August 20th, and it contains a notice of the death of Angus Anglesea.”
“Anglesea—dead!” exclaimed mother and daughter, in a breath, and in tones that expressed almost every other emotion under the sun, except sorrow.
“Yes, dead and gone to—his desserts!” exclaimed Abel Force, triumphantly; but catching himself up short, before he ended in a word that must never be mentioned, under any circumstances. “Here is a notice of his death.”
“Read it,” said Mrs. Force, while Odalite looked the eager interest, which she did not express in words.