How well I knew that scrupulously neat and feminine specimen of caligraphy. It was an autograph worthy of Queen Elizabeth, so regularly was each letter formed, the lines running in exact parallels; no flutter of the heart causing the least deviation from the exact rule. It ran as follows:
"Why do you continue to trouble me with letters which are not worth the postage? I hate to receive them, and from this time forward will return them unopened.
"Your best policy is to remain quiet, or I will disown the connection between us, and free myself from your importunity by consigning you to a mad-house.
"T—— M——."
"Unfeeling scoundrel!" I exclaimed; "surely this affectionate billet must have destroyed the last spark of affection in the breast of the unhappy girl."
"Women are strange creatures, Geoffrey, and often cling with most pertinacity to those who care little for their regard, while they take a perverse pleasure in slighting those who really love them—so it is with Alice. The worse he treated her, the more vehemently she clung to him. To make a final appeal to his callous heart she undertook the journey to London alone, with her baby in her arms, and succeeded under a feigned name in getting admittance to her husband.
"You know the result. He spurned the wife and child from his presence. The infant was taken sick on its homeward journey, and died shortly after she reached her grandmother's cottage; and she, poor creature, will soon follow it to the grave, for I am convinced that she is dying of a broken heart."
Margaret was quite overcome with this sad relation. Wiping the tears from her eloquent black eyes, and looking me sadly in the face, she said, with great earnestness:
"And now, Geoffrey, what can we do to serve her?"
"Inform Sir Alexander of these particulars. Let him obtain from Alice the legal proofs of her marriage, and force this base Theophilus—this disgrace to the name of a man, and of Moncton, to acknowledge her publicly as his wife. In the meanwhile, I will write to her brother, and inform him of this important discovery."