Early the next morning the newly-married pair took the steamboat for Washington, where in due time they safely arrived, and whence they took the train for the North.
They reached New York on Thursday night, had one intervening day to see something of the city and to make some few last purchases for their voyage, and on Saturday at noon they embarked on the magnificent ocean steamship "Pekin," bound from New York to Southampton.
We must leave them on board their ship, and return and look up Mary Grey.
Chapter XLI.
MARY GREY'S MYSTERY.
After Mrs. Grey's last interview with Alden Lytton, during which, partly because she lost her self-command and partly because she did not care longer to conceal her feelings, she had thrown off her mask, she sat down to review the situation.
"Well, I have betrayed myself," she mused. "I have let him see how I really feel about this marriage engagement between him and Emma Cavendish. He knows now how I loved him; if he has eyes in his head he sees now how I hate him.
"All right. I have now no further reason to deceive him. He has served my utmost purpose for his own and her own destruction. I no longer need his unconscious co-operation. I have his honor and his liberty, and her reputation and peace, in my power and at my mercy.