Miriam listened to this rattle with a face of infinite contempt.

“Silly child!  It will ruin your prospects for life.  Sir Roger will never marry you now.”

“No,” said Mollie, composedly, “I don’t think he will; for the simple reason that I wouldn’t have him.”

“Wouldn’t have him?  What do you mean?”

“What I say, auntie.  I wouldn’t marry him, or anybody else, just now.  I mean to find out who is my husband first.”

“Do they know this extraordinary story?”

Mollie laughed.

“No, poor things!  And he and guardy are dying by inches of curiosity.  Guardy has concocted a story, and tells it with his blandest air to everybody; and everybody smiles, and bows, and listens, and nobody believes a word of it.  And that odious Mrs. Carl—­there’s no keeping her in the dark.  She has the cunning of a serpent, that woman.  She has an inkling of the truth, already.”

“How?”

“Well, Mr. Rashleigh—­the clergyman, you know, who was abducted to marry us—­was at a dinner-party this very day—­or, rather, yesterday, for it’s two in the morning now—­and at dinner he related his whole wonderful adventure.  Of course, he didn’t see my face or know me; but he described the bride—­small, slender, with a profusion of golden ringlets.  You should have seen Mrs. Carl look across the table at me—­you should have heard her hiss in my ear, in her venomous, serpent-like way:  ’I think I know where you spent that fortnight.’  I couldn’t sleep to-night for thinking of it, and that’s how I came to be awake so late, and to see you from the window.  I’m not afraid of her; but I know she means me mischief, if she can.”

Miriam gazed thoughtfully at her.  She looked a very helpless, childish little creature, sitting there—­the youthful face looking out of that sunshiny cloud of curls.

“She is your deadly enemy, then, Mollie.  Why does she dislike you so much?”

“Because I dislike her, I suppose, and always did, and she knew it.  It is a case of mutual repulsion.  We were enemies at first sight.  Then she is jealous of me—­of my influence with her husband.  She is provoked that she can not fathom the mystery of my belongings, and she thinks, I know, I am Mr. Walraven’s daughter, sub rosa; and, to cap the climax, I won’t marry her cousin, Doctor Oleander.”

“You seem to dislike Doctor Oleander very much?”

“I do,” said Mollie, pithily.  “I’d give him and the handsome Blanche a dose of strychnine each, with all the pleasure in life, if it wasn’t a hanging matter.  I don’t care about being hanged.  It’s bad enough to be married and not know who your husband is.”

“It may be this Doctor Oleander.”

Mollie’s eyes blazed up.

“If it is!”—­she caught her breath and stopped—­“if it is, Miriam, I vow I would blow his brains out first, and my own afterward!  No, no, no!  Such a horrible thing couldn’t be!”