"You will find to your cost there is method in my madness, Mrs. Walraven. What say you, Doctor Oleander? Have you the hardihood to face me with a deliberate lie, too?"
Dr. Oleander was not deficient in a certain dog-like courage and daring. He saw his position in a moment—saw that denial would be utterly useless. His own mother would prove against him it if came to law.
There was but one avenue of escape for him—he saw it like a flash of light. Mollie would not dare publish this story of hers for her own sake, and neither would Carl Walraven for his wife's.
"He does not deny it!" cried Mollie. "He dare not. Look at his changing face. He carried me off and held me a prisoner in his mother's house, and gave out I was mad. And that is not the worst he has done. I might overlook that, now that I have safely escaped—"
Dr. Oleander suddenly interrupted her.
"That is the very worst—and you dare not publish it, even to punish me."
"What!" exclaimed the young lady, "do you deny your other tenfold greater crime—the compulsory marriage performed by the Reverend Raymond Rashleigh? Oh, if there be law or justice in the whole country, you shall suffer for that!"
"I do deny it," said the doctor, boldly. "You are no wife of mine by compulsion or otherwise. That story was trumped up to deceive you the second time."
Mollie's heart gave one great throb, and then seemed to stand still.
Mrs. Walraven turned, ghastly with fear and rage, upon her cousin.