Cecil was standing close to his wife with his arms folded across his
breast, his grave, troubled blue eyes fixed anxiously on her face. She
met that expressive glance, cowered, shivered, and flung up her hands
to hide her guilty face.
At that expressive action in which Molly mutely acknowledged her sin,
a moment of intense silence fell. Cecil Laurens himself broke it in a
voice of poignant anguish.
“It is true then, child? You have deceived Mrs. Barry, deceived me, and
become my wife under a borrowed name!”
Molly drew one hand from before her face and pointed at the real Louise
Barry.
“It was _her_ fault,” she said, passionately, and Louise Barry
answered, coldly:
“Do not add any more falsehoods to what you have already done, Molly,
for no one will believe you _now_!”
There was a veiled significance in the tone that the poor, cowering
girl understood but too well. Shudderingly she lifted her dark eyes to
the face of Cecil Laurens which had suddenly grown ashy pale and stern.
She half extended her trembling hand to him.
“Cecil, you will believe me when I explain _all_?” she said,
beseechingly.
But he replied with unmoved sternness:
“First tell me, is it really true that that lady is the real Louise
Barry?”
“It is true!” she replied, faintly, and shrinking from the fierce anger
that leaped into those blue eyes as she acknowledged the truth.
“And you,” he exclaimed, in a low, deep voice of angry bitterness and
scorn, “you are the daughter of the actress--you are Molly Trueheart!”
The ineffable scorn with which he named that name fired her soul as it
always did with sharp resentment, and her eyes flashed with proud fire
as she exclaimed:
“I am no longer Molly Trueheart, I am your wife, Mrs. Laurens.”
Louise Barry’s voice, sharp and clear and cruel, broke in maliciously:
“You are mistaken. Your marriage with Mr. Laurens being contracted
under a false name and personality was illegal. You are therefore still
Molly Trueheart, and he--is free--free as air!”
Cecil Laurens gave a quick start, and looked at Molly. Her face was
white and wild with agony as she sprang from the sofa and fell down at
his feet.
“It is not--it is _not true_!” she gasped, in an agonized voice.
“Cecil, Cecil, I _am_ your wife, you _are_ my husband! Speak, tell her
she speaks falsely!”
He was blindly, madly angry at the deception that had been practiced on
him. In his bitter wrath and outraged pride he caught quickly at Louise
Barry’s cue.
“Get up, Molly Trueheart, do not kneel at my feet, for she speaks the
truth!” he exclaimed, hoarsely. “Such a marriage would not stand in
law. I am therefore free of you, as Miss Barry has just told you.”
A shriek of mortal agony rang through the house; as Molly sprang
upward and stood before the handsome, angry man she loved, with an
awful corpse-like anguish on her girlish face. Her dark eyes clung to
his face despairingly, and she trembled like a wind-blown leaf.
No one spoke or moved, so intensely was the interest of all
concentrated on those two central figures--the outraged husband and
the agonized young wife. Ere her cry of anguish had ceased to re-echo
through the room, she wailed out, sharply, supplicatingly:
“You will forgive me, Cecil, you will make me your wife, in truth, as
I--thought I was. Oh, I can not bear this shame! I sinned through my
love of you, and my remorse has been so great that I have never known
one happy hour. But you loved me, Cecil, and you can not unlearn your
love so soon. You will make me your wife?”
Such tears as fell from her eyes were hot enough to blister the fair
face, such pain as racked her heart was enough to atone for her sin,
but the outraged husband was wild with wrath, and he answered in that
voice of smoldering fury and indignant pride:
“Why, you are John Keith’s divorced wife. You were bound to him when
you went through that farce of a marriage with me. Ah, I see through it
all now, but I can not understand how you duped him, so as to get away
with me, and then secure your divorce from him. I--”
“Hush, you shall not accuse me of _that_,” she interrupted, wildly.
“There stands the heartless woman who broke poor John Keith’s heart.
She is his divorced wife,” pointing an accusing finger at handsome
Louise Barry.
The magnificent-looking beauty lifted her hands and eyes to heaven with
an expressive shrug of her graceful shoulders.
“Heavens, what a false and wicked creature!” she exclaimed. “Aunt
Thalia, you have Aunt Lucy’s letter telling you of Molly Trueheart’s
entanglement with John Keith although we did not know it had gone as
far as a secret marriage.”
“Yes, I have the letter. Here, Cecil, read it,” exclaimed Mrs. Barry,
thrusting it into his hand.
Mechanically he ran his eyes over the open page, but presently a little
hand plucked timidly at his sleeve.
“I do not believe Aunt Lucy Everett wrote those falsehoods about me,”
cried Molly, dauntlessly, “she was a good woman and as kind to me as
cruel Louise would allow her to be. You see she has not followed me to
persecute me like these others.”
“She was sick and could not come,” Louise Barry said, with scornful
composure, and again a silence fell that was broken by Cecil’s voice,
low and stern:
“This letter has the stamp of truth upon it. I have indeed been
cruelly, shamelessly imposed on by an adventuress.”
“No, no!” in a voice of agonized remonstrance.
“Hush!” he said, looking at her sternly, rebukingly. “I know you now
for the false, treacherous creature you are, and your denials will not
be heeded. I have loved you, but I will tear you out of my heart and
life. After this hour I will never willingly see your face again.”
She cried out, desperately:
“Oh, for sweet pity’s sake take back your words. I am not the vile
creature you believe me. The only wrong I have done was in wedding you
under a false name. But you will be merciful, you will repair that
ignorant deed, you will make me your real wife for the sake of--” the
beseeching prayer was never ended, for exhausted nature gave way and
the girl fell gasping, and in a moment lay still as death upon the
floor.
* * * * *
She came to herself after what seemed a long, long time, and found that
she was alone in the room but for her maid, who was bathing her face
and hands in _eau de Cologne_.
“Oh, Mrs. Laurens, I was afraid you were dead!” she exclaimed.
“I wish I were!” sighed the poor girl, bitterly, realizing all her
desolation, and the maid, who had cleverly found out all that had
passed, thought that it would indeed be better for the deserted wife.
She saw the dark eyes wandering wistfully around the room, and said,
compassionately:
“All the family are gone away, ma’am, and Mr. Laurens gave me this note
for you.”
Molly took it with trembling fingers and read the angry words:
“The same roof could not shelter you and those whom you deceived,
traitress! so we have all gone away and left you. Pray accept the use
of the house as long as you wish. It was taken for the season, and
no one will molest you in its occupancy. The servants also you may
command, but for myself and my family we are from henceforth strangers
to one so false and wicked. Still, for the sake of the love I had for
you _once_, I will arrange with my lawyers for a sum to be paid you
yearly, that you may be kept from want or further sin. You may call on
them and get all particulars. Farewell forever.
“CECIL LAURENS.”
The sheet of paper dropped from Molly’s fingers and unconsciousness
again stole over her--unconsciousness so deep that she did not rouse
at the furious ringing of the door-bell that announced an impatient
visitor who a minute later was admitted into the room.
It was Cecil Laurens’ brother, Dr. Charley, who had run over from
Paris for a little visit with his home folks, and who now cried out in
amazement as he stumbled and nearly fell over the form of his beautiful
sister-in-law.