Earle turned from him, almost sick with disgust.
He was like many other people who have sought to do another some irreparable injury. He hated his blameless victim because, having overreached himself, the wrong had at last rebounded upon himself, and he was the chief sufferer from his own folly.
Gentle Marion Vance had done him no conscious wrong. She had loved and trusted him; she would have devoted her life to him and his interests. But, although he had not really succeeded in destroying her, and entailing lasting dishonor upon her name, yet she had suffered for the time as if he had accomplished his purpose.
But the truth had triumphed at last, as it always does. He stood exposed in all his baseness; his evil doings were revealed, and the shame and injury done to himself were far greater than he had ever dreamed of bringing upon her. Marion at last stood vindicated before the world as the pure and innocent girl she was, while the whole black catalogue of Sumner Dalton’s guilt was now sweeping down like an avalanche upon him, threatening to ruin and crush him utterly.
He might live ten, twenty, even thirty years longer, but his treachery would follow him forever; it would never be forgotten by any one who had known of it. Henceforth he would be a marked man, and one never more to be trusted or honored.
“Stay!” Mr. Dalton suddenly exclaimed, as if a new thought had struck him. “The legal husband of Marion Vance would have rights there even now. I will see to this matter. Who has been master at Wycliffe all these years?”
“Warrenton Fairfield Vance, my mother’s father, has ruled there until his death, which occurred only a few months ago,” Earle answered, quietly, but reading at once what was passing in the man’s mind.
“And who came into the property then?” he demanded, eagerly.
“A cousin of my mother’s—Paul Tressalia by name.”
“Zounds! Girl, do you hear that?” exclaimed Mr. Dalton, very much astonished, and turning to Editha. “But——” he began again, with a perplexed look.