"For the sake of his dear daughter's 'happiness'!" moaned Elfrida Force, in mournful irony.
"Yes. I repeat it. For the sake of her happiness. How, under existing circumstances, should her happiness be best preserved, do you think? By marrying that young naval officer, and seeing, as a consequence, the ruin and dishonor of her whole family, and, bitterest of all, being made to feel the shame and regret of her own young husband for having married her, the daughter of----"
"Wretch! hold your tongue!" exclaimed Elfrida Force, clasping her head with both hands.
"Or," relentlessly continued the man, "would her happiness be best secured by marrying me, who, knowing the skeleton in the closet, accepts it with other family incumbrances, and keeps it closely locked up from the knowledge of all, since his honor is then also concerned in its concealment, and in the social rank and domestic peace of his new relations? Now, then, answer me. Which fate is to be preferred for your daughter?"
"Oh, demon! I think a marriage with you the worst possible fate that could befall my child. If she only were in question I would--oh, my Lord, how gladly!--lay her in her coffin rather than give her to you. But it is not of her that I am thinking most," moaned the lady, almost unconsciously, as she bowed her weary head upon her hand.
No, nor was it over the child, but over the husband she was mourning--the adored husband--the proud, sensitive, honorable man, whose head would be bowed to the dust with shame at any reproach, however undeserved, that might fall upon his wife.
Who cannot foresee the result of such a contest? Before the end of the interview the mother had consented to offer up her child, that the wife might save her husband.
Elfrida Force crept up to her bedchamber, opened a little medicine chest, took from it a small vial containing a colorless liquid, poured out a few drops in a wineglass half full of water, and drank off the sedative.
This was not the first occasion on which the unhappy lady had felt herself obliged to resort to deadening drugs to enable her to bear the presence of Angus Anglesea in the house.
Then she locked her medicine chest, and went down to the sitting room, and, calling a servant, said: