“Lie still; do not disturb yourself; it is over. You said that she was lost to me, forever. She is married to another, then?”
“I wish to Heaven that I knew she was; but I only know that she ought to be.”
“Tell me all!”
The voice was so hollow, so forced, so unnatural, that Colonel Houston could not under other circumstances have recognized it as his son’s.
The old man commenced and related the circumstances as they were known to himself.
Captain Houston listened—his dreadful calmness as the story progressed, startled first into eager attention, then into a breathless straining for the end, and finally into astonishment and joy! And just as the story came to the point of Margaret’s return from her mysterious trip, with the denial that she was married, he broke forth with:
“But you told me that she was lost to me forever! I see nothing to justify such an announcement!”
“Good Heaven, Ralph, you must be infatuated, man! But wait a moment.” And taking up the thread of his narrative, he related how all Miss Helmstedt’s friends, convinced of her guilt or folly, had deserted her.
At this part of the recital Ralph Houston’s fine countenance darkened with sorrow, indignation and scorn.
“Poor dove!—but we can spare them. Go on, sir! go on!”