“Hush!” he said, sternly, pointing to Molly, whose breast began to heave with signs of returning life. “She will have to know it all, so as well hear it now as any other time,” said Louise Barry, and she went on relentlessly, “About a month ago by an accident I became possessed of the letter Aunt Thalia had written to me, and I instantly suspected that I had been deceived. My aunt, Mrs. Everett, wrote to Mrs. Barry asking for information, and received all the details of the impostor’s career up to the time of her marriage with you. Then we went to Ferndale and Aunt Thalia insisted that we should cross the ocean and free you from the toils of an adventuress!” “I will not believe this horrible story of my dear young wife. It is you who are the impostor, the adventuress!” muttered Cecil, angrily. “Aunt Thalia, will you show him the proofs?” asked Louise Barry calmly, and with a cold, triumphant gleam in her golden colored eyes. Mrs. Barry eagerly produced them, and in the midst of the heated argument Molly’s dark eyes opened suddenly upon the scene with an incredulous stare, falling first on Mrs. Barry’s ugly, angry face. “Aunt Thalia--or, do I dream?” she exclaimed weakly, and the old lady answered tartly: “You’re waking up now from a very fine dream that you’ve been dreaming almost a year, Molly Trueheart!” Molly gave a gasp of terror. Her eyes had taken in everything. Cecil’s stern white face, Louise Barry’s triumphant one, and these coupled with Mrs. Barry’s words, assured her that all was discovered, that her dream of happiness was ended, her life with Cecil over and done. CHAPTER XX. Cecil was standing close to his wife with his arms folded across his breast, his grave, troubled blue eyes fixed anxiously on her face. She met that expressive glance, cowered, shivered, and flung up her hands to hide her guilty face. At that expressive action in which Molly mutely acknowledged her sin, a moment of intense silence fell. Cecil Laurens himself broke it in a voice of poignant anguish. “It is true then, child? You have deceived Mrs. Barry, deceived me, and become my wife under a borrowed name!” Molly drew one hand from before her face and pointed at the real Louise Barry. “It was _her_ fault,” she said, passionately, and Louise Barry answered, coldly: “Do not add any more falsehoods to what you have already done, Molly, for no one will believe you _now_!” There was a veiled significance in the tone that the poor, cowering girl understood but too well. Shudderingly she lifted her dark eyes to the face of Cecil Laurens which had suddenly grown ashy pale and stern. She half extended her trembling hand to him. “Cecil, you will believe me when I explain _all_?” she said, beseechingly. But he replied with unmoved sternness: “First tell me, is it really true that that lady is the real Louise Barry?”