“I am not often thus, Jack, as you must know.[know.] A vivid recollection of days that have long been past came freshly over me, and I believe I have been a little unmanned. To you, my early history is a blank; but a very few words will serve to tell all you need ever know. I was about your time of life, Jack, when I loved, courted, and became engaged to Mary Millington—Michael’s great-aunt. Is this new to you?”
“Not entirely, sir; Sarah has told me something of the same sort—you know the girls get hold of family anecdotes sooner than we men.”
“She then probably told you that I was cruelly, heartlessly jilted, for a richer man. Mary married, and left one daughter; who also married early, her own cousin, Frank Millington, the cousin of Michael’s father. You may now see why I have ever felt so much interest in your future brother-in-law.”
“He is a good fellow, and quite free from all jilting blood, I’ll answer for it. But, what has become of this Mrs. Frank Millington? I remember no such person.”
“Like her mother, she died young, leaving an only daughter to inherit her name and very ample fortune. The reason you never knew Mr. Frank Millington is probably because he went to Paris early, where he educated his daughter, in a great degree—there, and in England—and when he died, Mildred Millington, the heiress of both parents, is said to have had quite twenty thousand a year. Certain officious friends made a match for her, I have heard, with a Frenchman of some family, but small means; and the recent revolution has driven them to this country, where, as I have been told, she took the reins of domestic government into her own hands, until some sort of a separation has been the consequence.”
“Why, this account is surprisingly like the report we have had concerning Mary Monson, this morning!” cried Jack, springing to his feet with excitement.
“I believe her to be the same person. Many things unite to create this opinion. In the first place, there is certainly a marked family resemblance to her grandmother and mother; then the education, manners, languages, money, Marie Moulin, and the initials of the assumed name, each and all have their solution in this belief. The ‘Mademoiselle’ and the ‘Madame’ of the Swiss maid are explained; in short, if we can believe this Mary Monson to be Madame de Larocheforte, we can find an explanation of everything that is puzzling in her antecedents.”
“But, why should a woman of twenty thousand a year be living in the cottage of Peter Goodwin?”
“Because she is a woman of twenty thousand a year. Mons. de Larocheforte found her money was altogether at her own command, by this new law, and, naturally enough, he desired to play something more than a puppet’s part in his own abode and family. The lady clings to her dollars, which she loves more than her husband; a quarrel ensues, and she chooses to retire from his protection, and conceal herself, for a time, under Peter Goodwin’s roof, to evade pursuit. Capricious and wrong-headed women do a thousand strange things, and thoughtless gabblers often sustain them in what they do.”
“This is rendering the marriage tie very slight!”