But though she knew that Harold Vreeland would dare to make no public use of the document, though she was positive that fear of political scandal would seal James Garston’s lips, she dared not deny, in her lone watches under the stars, that the man whom she had banished was still her husband—“till death do us part.”
And if Vreeland was the thief, he could sell her to shame in all men’s eyes if Garston would shield him.
She knew further that there was no mercy in Garston’s love-maddened heart now!
And a bitter thought haunted her over the dark Atlantic waters. “My child’s future! She can not marry under the suspicion of illegitimate birth, and she shall never deem her mother to have been a guilty wanton.”
Even Judge Endicott and the chivalric Hugh Conyers knew but half the truth. Both had assumed that there had been an early and unhappy marriage, and both only believed that Elaine Willoughby was merely fighting for the custody of a child whom they knew not to be of legal age.
“If they knew more, I would either have to clear myself by the whole truth, or else be disgraced in their eyes,” she murmured.
And on the instant call of her New York agents she had returned now to strike a death blow to all Harold Vreeland’s criminal schemes. But she was so sadly weak in her own defenses, against the laws of nature, of God’s holy sacrament of marriage, and the pleading eyes of her innocent child! And yet Vreeland’s demoralization forced desperate measures upon her now. If he should die or abscond, then, there was ruin to face.
And on this night, when her husband mourned in agony over his forfeited paradise and his childless age, the unhappy wife and mother only awaited the moment when Harold Vreeland would fall into the snares so skillfully set for him. That victory won, then she would bid adieu to the “Street’s” mad ventures, her secret trust once resigned, peace, love and happiness awaited her at Lake Malar. But safety first, peace afterward. She felt whither the undercurrent of speculation had swept her. On a lee shore!
“I can tell Romaine all when she is my very own, and she shall choose between us then, and judge us both.
“She alone has the right to the truth.”