“Despair! I have lived in it for months. I shall die in it!”
“If you do you will never see Heaven at all. For despair is the last and most fatal of sins. But you needn’t give up to it just yet!”
“Oh, what do you mean? What hope have I in this world?”
“The hope that lasts as long as life. Listen, Drusilla. I said that your state was desperate—not that your cause was lost. ‘Desperate cases require desperate remedies.’ Your case is such a one, and my remedy is such a one.”
“What remedy have you for me? However desperate, however dangerous, I will not refuse it or shrink from it! I would dare anything, suffer anything, to save my Alick from his sin and win him back to me again!” said the devoted wife, clasping her hands and gazing imploringly into the eyes of the lady who seemed now to hold her destiny.
“Then attend to me, Drusilla, while I divulge my plan—the only plan by which you can save your Alick from present guilt and future remorse, and yourself and your child from the greatest wrong and the deepest shame—the only plan, Drusilla, by which you may hope to WIN YOUR WAY!”
“Speak on, tell me! I listen!” gasped Drusilla, in a breathless voice.
“Well, as I said before, Alexander Lyon is confidently hoping to lead his bride before the minister this evening. His hopes must be fulfilled—in you, Drusilla!”
“In me!”
“Yes, in you! You must enact the bride this evening.”