Something must be done: things must be talked over. Come down and make love to Miss Arthur. Her money is not entailed.
Bring me some Periques and a box of Alexis gloves—you know the number. Yours in disgust,
Cora Mme. Arthur.
Madeline dropped the letter, and stood amazed. What did it mean? "Cora Mme. Arthur!"
Henry stooped for the letter, and the act recalled her to herself. She thanked him for the service he had done her; told him of her intended departure; gave him some last instructions, and dismissed him with a kind good-by.
"I took the letter before I locked the desk."—[page 127.]
"It is time to act," she muttered. "Good heavens! the audacity of that man and woman! She is married to my step-father, if that letter does not lie; has married him for money, and is baffled there. She hoped to become his widow, aha! The plot thickens, indeed! Goodness! what a household! That bad old man, the still viler woman, dangerous Lucian Davlin, and that funny, youthful, cross, 'conceited spinster,' Ellen Arthur, who has a lover, and his name is—heaven save us—Percy! That name will mix itself up with my fate web, and why? Percy beloved of Claire; Percy who brought Philip Girard to his doom; Percy the lover of a rich old maid, are ye one and the same? Percy! Percy! Percy! I must cultivate the Percys at any cost."
She turned and entered the house, her head bent, thinking, thinking, thinking.