He needed no stronger proof of her devotion; he knew that she loved him as fondly now as in those months of their early wedded life, and he folded her still closer to him, kissing, again and again, those dear lips, which for eighteen years had known no caress save what she had received from her child.
Their reunion was perfect and complete, and, for a little while, they could think of nothing, speak of nothing save the joy of being once more all in all to each other.
But at length Sir William insisted that she should tell him all the story of the past; how the first suspicion of his treachery had taken root in her mind, and all the circumstances attending her quitting the hotel in New York where he had left her.
He was amazed when she related Mrs. Farnum’s instrumentality in the matter. It had never occurred to him that she could have been connected with it, although he had known that she was in America at that time.
He was furious upon learning how she had garbled the account of his cousin’s engagement to Margaret Stanhope, and how his sister had purposely misrepresented facts in order to accomplish their separation.
He understood at once the whole plot, and recalled many things which went to prove that her ambition for him and her unreasonable prejudice against Virgie had been at the root of the whole matter.
“Did she dare write such falsehoods?” he cried, as Virgie repeated some passages from her letters.
“Yes,” she replied, “I copied both letters. I knew that some time there would come a day of reckoning between you and me, and although every line had been burned into my brain, as if branded there with a hot iron, I was resolved that you should have all the evidence against you, and know whence my information came.”
“Have you those copies with you, darling?”
“Yes; they are in my trunk.”