"Will and Margie returned while I was writing to you, and both look so well and happy that it does my heart good to see them. Of course I had to stop for awhile, but now I will try and finish my letter. I have had a serious talk with my brother, and he appears to feel very much troubled over his American escapade, confessed that he had done wrong, and gave me this hundred pound note, which I inclose for the benefit of the girl; and I sincerely trust she will do nothing more to disturb a happy household, and one which will be very much annoyed by any useless scandal."
There followed a little more pertaining in an indifferent way to the above household, but Virgie had read enough, and the letter fell from her nerveless fingers, while she sat staring vacantly before her, her brain almost turned by the heartless words she had just read, her heart broken with its weight of woe, while a feeling of utter wretchedness and desolation made her long for death to steep her senses in oblivion.
She forgot all about the paper which had been given her with the letter, while the hundred-pound note, which had been inclosed with it, had fluttered out unheeded as she drew it from the envelope, and now lay upon the floor at her feet.
Later she examined the paper, and found a notice of the marriage of William Heath and Margaret Stanhope. Whether Lady Linton had been the cause of it to further her schemes, or whether some strange fatality had occasioned the mistake, it would be difficult to say, but the paragraph read:
"Married:—On the 28th instant, in the Heath Chapel, Sir William Heath, of Heathdale, to Miss Margaret Stanhope, only daughter of the late Sidney Stanhope."
Thus was added the last drop to the cup of bitterness which Virgie had to drink.
There had been a strange mixture of truth and falsehood in the letter which Lady Linton wrote to Mrs. Farnum.
Her brother was away for a day or two on a matter of business when Virgie's imploring epistle arrived—a circumstance for which his sister was most thankful, for it was no trifling matter for her to be always on the alert to intercept the letters that passed, through the bag at Heathdale. But she had succeeded in accomplishing this by having had an extra key made for the lock and always accompanying the carriage when it went for the mail.