In her feeble, cracked voice, sharpened by anger, and with features distorted by fury, she exclaimed:
“Call nobody, do nothing, Cecil Laurens! Let the impostor who tricked an old woman and fooled a young man lie there and die! It is the best thing that could happen to you both!”
“Mrs. Barry, you are certainly out of your mind!” exclaimed the young man, indignantly. He had already fallen down on his knees and was chafing Molly’s cold, limp hands in both his own.
“Louise, Louise!” he called, anxiously, and the lady in black silk rustled forward.
“That is my name, sir,” she said, coolly. “I am Louise Barry, and that girl there,” contemptuously, “is only Molly Trueheart, my step-sister, who became your wife by one of the most stupendous frauds ever perpetrated on a confiding man!”
He stared at her as he had done at Mrs. Barry, and answered, angrily:
“You must be mad, woman! How dare you make such an assertion?”
Mrs. Laurens burst into bitter tears and laid her hand on his head.
“Oh, my son, it is the fatal truth!” she sighed. “That girl there, your wife, whom we loved and respected as one of the Barrys, is only the daughter of the actress that Philip Barry married, and this lady is indeed Miss Louise Barry.”
“Mother, how can you say such false things? Father, can you stand there silent and let them traduce my pure and honorable wife?”