CHAPTER XII.
A MESSAGE FROM THE DEAD.
Less than a week after the events last related, and a family group surrounds the lunch table in the newly furnished morning room of Oakley.
The fair and fascinating Mrs. Torrance had accomplished the purpose for which she came to Bellair.
Truly had she said, "There is no fool like an old fool;" for John Arthur had been an easy victim. He had lost no time with his wooing, and so, a little less than two months from the day the fair widow came to Bellair, saw her mistress of John Arthur's household.
A bridal tour was not to her taste, much to the delight of the bridegroom. So they set about refitting some of the fine old rooms of the mansion, Cora having declared that they were too gloomy to be inhabitable.
As it was to her interest to keep up the deception of frank affection, she had been, during the two months of their honey-moon, a model wife. But the discovery that John Arthur could leave her nothing save his blessing, had now been made, and Cora, who was already weary of her gray-headed dupe, had been for a few days past less careful in her dissembling.
For this reason John Arthur now sat with a moody brow, and watched her smile upon her brother with a feeling of jealous wrath.
The bride had thrown off her badge of mourning, and was very glad to bloom out once more in azure and white and rose—hues which her soul loved.