"No!" I cried.
"Yes!" continued Jack, with an affectionate lunge at me; "at any rate I can swear he is the man; and I would bet a thousand to one that the girl was Olivia."
"But when was it?" I asked.
"Since he married again," he answered; "they were married on the 2d of October, and this was early in November. I had gone to Ridley's after a place for a poor fellow as an assistant to a druggist; and I saw the girl distinctly. She gave the name of Ellen Martineau. Those letters about her death are all forgeries."
"Olivia's is not," I said; "I know her handwriting too well."
"Well, then," observed Jack, "there is only one explanation. She has sent them herself to throw Foster off the scent; she thinks she will be safe if he believes her dead."
"No," I answered, hotly, "she would never have done such a thing as that."
"Who else is benefited by it?" he asked, gravely. "It does not put Foster into possession of any of her property; or that would have been a motive for him to do it. But he gains nothing by it; and he is so convinced of her death that he has married a second wife."
It was difficult to hit upon any other explanation; yet I could not credit this one. I felt firmly convinced that Olivia could not be guilty of an artifice so cunning. I was deceived in her indeed if she would descend to any fraud so cruel. But I could not discuss the question even with Jack Senior. Tardif was the only person who knew Olivia well enough to make his opinion of any value. Besides, my mind was not as clear as Jack's that she was the girl he had seen in November. Yet the doubt of her death was full of hope; it made the earth more habitable, and life more endurable.
"What can I do now?" I said, speaking aloud, though I was thinking to myself.