“Yes,” he muttered; and the scene of his wedding night rushed freshly over Cecil, and a red-hot shaft of jealous doubt tore through his heart.
“Then,” said Louise Barry, significantly. “I shall say no more about John Keith as she is your wife. What is the use,” pointedly, “of making bad matters worse?”
“Hush!” he said, sternly, pointing to Molly, whose breast began to heave with signs of returning life.
“She will have to know it all, so as well hear it now as any other time,” said Louise Barry, and she went on relentlessly, “About a month ago by an accident I became possessed of the letter Aunt Thalia had written to me, and I instantly suspected that I had been deceived. My aunt, Mrs. Everett, wrote to Mrs. Barry asking for information, and received all the details of the impostor’s career up to the time of her marriage with you. Then we went to Ferndale and Aunt Thalia insisted that we should cross the ocean and free you from the toils of an adventuress!”
“I will not believe this horrible story of my dear young wife. It is you who are the impostor, the adventuress!” muttered Cecil, angrily.
“Aunt Thalia, will you show him the proofs?” asked Louise Barry calmly, and with a cold, triumphant gleam in her golden colored eyes.
Mrs. Barry eagerly produced them, and in the midst of the heated argument Molly’s dark eyes opened suddenly upon the scene with an incredulous stare, falling first on Mrs. Barry’s ugly, angry face.
“Aunt Thalia—or, do I dream?” she exclaimed weakly, and the old lady answered tartly:
“You’re waking up now from a very fine dream that you’ve been dreaming almost a year, Molly Trueheart!”
Molly gave a gasp of terror. Her eyes had taken in everything. Cecil’s stern white face, Louise Barry’s triumphant one, and these coupled with Mrs. Barry’s words, assured her that all was discovered, that her dream of happiness was ended, her life with Cecil over and done.