“I came here this morning to offer to help you in your arrangements for going away. I expected to find you gone already indeed, for how can you have the hardihood to stay here in Cecil Laurens’ house after what has happened? He is nothing to you, less than nothing!” “Hush, Louise! I am his wife in the sight of Heaven!” the wretched wife cried out in passionate denial, and the utter agony of her face might have moved a heart of stone, but Louise Barry was pitiless. “Nonsense!” she said, curtly. “Your marriage under a false name and identity is utterly void in law, and Cecil Laurens was quick to take advantage of the fact. You are a disgraced creature, and nothing remains to you but flight to some far secluded spot, where none who know you now can ever hear of you again.” Molly sat upright among her pillows, and her eyes flashed resentfully. “Oh, yes, that is what you would like!” she exclaimed. “You want to hustle me out of sight somewhere, thinking that I shall never have the opportunity of telling Cecil the part you took in sending me to Ferndale under a borrowed identity; but I shall tell him _all_ when I see him again, and then he shall judge between us.” CHAPTER XXIV. Suddenly Miss Barry arose from her seat, stepped quickly to the bed, and caught Molly’s hot, writhing hands in both her strong, cool, white ones. It was a fierce, vindictive grasp that pained Molly’s tender wrists, and, looking up with frightened eyes, she saw that Louise’s face was working with fury. “Look at me, Molly Trueheart!” she hissed, savagely, and Molly’s dark, piteous, tearful orbs lifted reluctantly to meet that gaze filled with tigress fury. Louise continued, fiercely: “Since you came to live with us as a child, Molly, have you ever known me to give up anything on which I had set my heart?” “No,” sighed the trembling girl. “Have I not forced you in every instance where our wills clashed to yield to me?” “Ye-es,” half sobbed the agonized victim, with a shudder. “Very well, then, since you own this, Molly, you ought not to be surprised that I intend to adhere to my purpose. So I say now, briefly, and for all, that you shall never betray my part in your going to my aunt at Ferndale. I have told Cecil Laurens that it was all your treachery, and you shall not betray me!” “But I will! I must! Oh, Louise, you must be mad to think I could let him go on thinking so hardly of me! I shall tell him, or Doctor Charley, or--or--any one who will listen to me,” piteously. “No one will listen to you, you little fool!” Louise hissed, angrily. She pinched the little wrists tighter in her fierce grasp, and gave Molly such a vicious shake that she cried out in pain and terror. Bending lower, she went on, cruelly: “Do you know what I would do to you, Molly, if you attempted to betray me?” “No-o, Louise! Oh, let go my hands, you hurt me!”