“Thank Heaven!” again breathed Elfrida Force.
“I have had an explanation with our friends and neighbors; have told them all that they need know, and nothing more,” continued the squire.
For the first time since his entrance the lady looked uneasy.
“Do not distress yourself, my dear. I will tell you all that I said, and how I said it,” he added.
And then he repeated, nearly word for word, all that had passed in the alcove of the ladies’ parlor on the preceding night.
“Oh, Abel, how well you have managed to shield me, unworthy that I am, from all reproach!” she murmured, in a tremulous voice.
“Nay, dear! Do not speak so of yourself. If I have tried to lift the burdens and dispel the shadows from about you, it is because it would have been unjust for you to suffer from them. And, Elfrida, I have had this morning an exhaustive interview with our son.”
“Ah, yes! yes! What will Roland think of my long ignoring him?” sighed the mother.
“He knows now all about it—the cruel, slanderous deception practiced on you by the man Stukely, when he made you believe that the marriage with Saviola was illegal, and left you no other alternative than to do as you did. And no shadow of implied blame is felt by Roland—only reverential tenderness and compassion for all that you have had to suffer for so many years from the diabolical villainy of one man. Roland is impatient to see you, my dear, as soon as you can admit him.”
“My incomparable husband!” breathed the lady, penetrated by her perception of his utter unselfishness and superiority to every feeling of jealousy.