"And he shall be!" Mollie cried, her eyes sparkling. "He shall be, if all the world knows the story! What care I? I will have my revenge on the man I hate—on the man who has wronged me beyond reparation. And then I can go away where no one will know me, and make my own way through the world, as I did before I ever came to New York."
Hugh Ingelow looked at her. Her eyes were alight, her cheeks flushed, her whole face eager, angry, and aglow.
"Wronged you beyond reparation!" he slowly repeated. "Mollie, what do you mean?"
"I mean," Mollie passionately cried, "that I am his wife. And I will never forgive him for making me that—never, never, if it were my dying day!"
"His wife!"
The young man looked at her thunder-struck.
"Oh! you don't know. You hadn't heard, of course. It wasn't this time. I would have murdered him and myself this time before he would ever lay a finger on me. It was before. You remember that other time I was carried off?"
"Oh!"
It was all Mr. Ingelow said; but, singular to relate, he looked unutterably relieved.
"He married me then—forced me to marry him—and I—Oh, miserable girl that I am! why did I not die a thousand deaths sooner than consent? But I was mad, and it's too late now. Mr. Rashleigh married us. You recollect that story he told at Mrs. Grand's dinner-party? Well, I was the masked heroine of that adventure; but I never, never, never thought Guy Oleander was the hero. I'd have died, even then, sooner than become his wife. I hoped it was—I thought it was—"