So earnest was the plaint that tears rushed into the dark eyes, and Cecil, moved to sympathy, answered ardently: “I believe you are an angel, Louise, as I once heard that unlucky fellow call you. Certainly, I’ll try to find him some work; but I doubt if I’ll be doing him a good turn helping him to marry selfish Molly Trueheart. And then, you know, we leave tomorrow on our wedding-tour, and shall not know where to find him, as he has run away.” “I know where to write to him. I have his address; and, oh, Cecil, I shall love you more than ever for _this_!” Molly cried, impetuously. “Thanks, my little love. With that reward in view, I shall strive earnestly to set your forlorn friend up in business before we leave tomorrow,” Cecil Laurens replied, gayly, but tenderly and earnestly. CHAPTER XVII. Molly crossed with her noble, handsome husband the beautiful ocean of which she had dreamed, and the skies seemed to smile on the fair young bride, for the weather was beautiful throughout, and the water so smooth and calm that many of the passengers escaped even a touch of seasickness. In ten days they were in London, where the bride met her new relatives, Cecil’s parents, and two school-girl sisters. When she went to Paris she met there Doctor Charlie Laurens, Cecil’s younger brother, who was studying at the medical school in that gay city. All of these new friends Molly found very agreeable people, who were disposed to make a special pet of Cecil’s wife, and who were pleased and happy as he knew they would be because he had married a Barry. They dwelt on this latter fact so much that it was actual torture to Molly’s guilty soul. “Oh, what will they say if they ever find me out?” she sighed often to herself, and her sin weighed upon her soul so heavily that even Cecil’s devotion fell short of making her happy. There kept whispering in her ear the still, small voice of conscience, and sometimes she would sob bitterly when alone in blind terror of the future, when she should be found out in her sin. But life went on very brightly for many months in a whirl of gayety and pleasure. Mrs. Laurens, who was fond of society, managed to have her beautiful daughter-in-law presented at court, and after that invitations rained upon the beautiful couple. London lavished admiration on the lovely American bride, and Molly enjoyed it all with a feverish, fearful pleasure, knowing that at any moment her house of cards might tumble to pieces. Mrs. Barry wrote her occasional letters from Ferndale, and in one of them she said that she had written to Lucy Everett all about her niece’s grand marriage and tour to Europe. She added that they had never answered the letter, by which she guessed that she and that Trueheart girl were too angry and envious to reply. “They know it all now--oh, what will they do?” the little fraud gasped in a fright, but months went on and there came no signs from the real Louise Barry.