“Yes, I see. But he took his time in coming to Geneva; did not make his appearance there, indeed, until weeks after Saviola’s death, when he came, I suppose, in the course of his own business.”
“Well, my dear Elfrida, it must have been the sight of your beautiful face that tempted him to his subtle villainies; to use the papers and the information he really possessed in the manufacturing of false evidence, to convince you that your true and lawful marriage had been a fraud, in order to get you in his power.”
“Yes, yes. But when and how did you discover that the marriage was really lawful, and that the evidence produced by Stukely was fabricated?”
“By the appearance, yesterday, of the bona-fide Angus Anglesea, who went with you and Saviola to Scotland, saw you married, and, for your better security, took an attested copy of your marriage certificate, which I have now in my possession.”
“My brother’s friend here! My brother’s friend all that we first believed him to be! The vow he made to see me scathless through my mad marriage kept to the letter! The shadow lifted from my life! Oh! I am so glad—so glad, and so grateful! Thank Heaven!—oh, thank Heaven!”
“Do not excite yourself, Elfrida. You promised to be quiet.”
“Well, I will. I will be quiet. But I am so happy—happier than I have been for twenty-five years! What brought Gen. Anglesea here?”
“He came in search of you. He brought with him some papers that belong to you,” said the squire; and then, while the lady listened with breathless interest, he told her of his accidental meeting with her brother’s old friend on the avenue the night before, and of the long interview they had had in the apartments of the general, in which the latter had told of his visit to Naples, his chance encounter with the Prince Saviola, and all that had transpired on the occasion, which was followed a few weeks later by the death of the prince, who had left all his devisable estate to his grandnephew, Rolando, only son of Luigi Saviola, and his wife, Elfrida Glennon.
“And our dear friend took all the trouble to go to Geneva and hunt up the baptismal register of my son, and then to come across the ocean to find me out?”
“And to bring you the copies of your marriage certificate, the register of your son’s birth and baptism, and of your greatuncle’s will.”