"Oleander has given out that he is going to Cuba--he makes no secret of one half the story, you see--and Mr. Walraven gives a farewell dinner in honor of the mournful occasion, on Thursday--to-morrow evening. The party is select--very--on your account, you know--only Sir Roger Trajenna, Walraven's lawyer, Sardonyx, and myself. Now, when we're all assembled, discussing your absence, as I'll take care we shall be, and Oleander is telling lies by the yard, do you appear like a thunder-clap and transfix him. Guilt will be confounded, innocence triumphantly vindicated, the virtuous made happy, and the curtain will go down amid tremendous applause. Eh, how do you like the style of that?" Mollie laughed gleefully. Half-tamed thing that she was, a few moments of breezy freedom, by the side of the man she loved, made her all her old, happy, mischief-loving self again. In the first bright sparkle and intoxication, she could quite forget that awful fact that she was Dr. Oleander's wedded wife. "Splendid! Oh! what fun it will be to see him! And such glorious revenge, too!" "Seriously, Mollie," said Mr. Ingelow, "he deserves to be punished for his unmanly trick." "And he shall be!" Mollie cried, her eyes sparkling. "He shall be, if all the world knows the story! What care I? I will have my revenge on the man I hate--on the man who has wronged me beyond reparation. And then I can go away where no one will know me, and make my own way through the world, as I did before I ever came to New York." Hugh Ingelow looked at her. Her eyes were alight, her cheeks flushed, her whole face eager, angry, and aglow. "Wronged you beyond reparation!" he slowly repeated. "Mollie, what do you mean?" "I mean," Mollie passionately cried, "that I am his wife. And I will never forgive him for making me that--never, never, if it were my dying day!" "His wife!" The young man looked at her thunder-struck. "Oh! you don't know. You hadn't heard, of course. It wasn't this time. I would have murdered him and myself this time before he would ever lay a finger on me. It was before. You remember that other time I was carried off?" "Oh!" It was all Mr. Ingelow said; but, singular to relate, he looked unutterably relieved. "He married me then--forced me to marry him--and I--Oh, miserable girl that I am! why did I not die a thousand deaths sooner than consent? But I was mad, and it's too late now. Mr. Rashleigh married us. You recollect that story he told at Mrs. Grand's dinner-party? Well, I was the masked heroine of that adventure; but I never, never, never thought Guy Oleander was the hero. I'd have died, even then, sooner than become his wife. I hoped it was--I thought it was--" She paused abruptly. "Who?" pointedly asked Hugh Ingelow. Mollie stole a side-long glance from under her sweeping lashes at the handsome face. "Some one who loved me as well, and whom I--well, didn't exactly hate; and I do hate Doctor Oleander!"