“It is what I have expected all the time,” she said. “Molly never cared for Mr. Laurens. It was his money that tempted her, and she has found out now that John Keith’s love was more to her than gold. Mr. Laurens ought to cast her from his heart forever.” “I have told him I should be glad if he would divorce her, but he will not agree to do so,” said Cecil’s mother. “I wish he would,” said Louise, and the aspiration came from her heart. She was secretly enraged and frightened at the failure of the scheme she had intrusted to Florine Dabol. “As long as Molly Trueheart lives the sword of Damocles will be suspended by a single hair over my head,” she thought, angrily, and in her disappointment she had at first refused to pay the promised bribe to the Frenchwoman. But Florine was insolent. “Very well,” she said, “break your promise if you will, and I know where to find Madame Laurens at any moment. And upon my soul I believe I should feel happier in reconciling that deceived husband and wife than in taking the gold you promised me for keeping them apart.” That threat frightened Louise and she paid Florine, after binding her solemnly to keep Molly still apart from her husband. “That will be easy to do if you will only make your arrangements to return to America with the Laurens family. It will lend color to the stories I have told her of her husband’s love for you,” said the maid. “But if she should follow us, if she should relent and come back to her husband?” “She will not do it. She is too proud. But even if she should attempt such a thing I will prevent it,” declared Florine. So Louise and her Aunt Thalia returned to America on the same steamer with the Laurens family. Mrs. Barry had been longing for Ferndale for weeks, and so Louise found it easy to throw the blame of her return upon the old lady. “I have not the heart to keep her away from home any longer, however reluctant I may be to leave London before the gay season is over,” she said, with an affectation of dutifulness that did not deceive the keen-sighted old lady, who knew already that her niece was selfish and cold-hearted, and cared for nothing but money. But she was glad to go home again on any terms, so she did not even suffer herself to look sarcastic at Louise’s hypocrisy. She knew she had to make the best of the heiress for whom poor Molly had been discarded. They went home, and Cecil set out to trace Molly and her lover, vowing to himself a dark revenge upon the man for whom his wife had deserted and disgraced him. The Barry and Laurens families became more intimate than ever. There was an unspoken desire on each side that Cecil would procure a divorce from his faithless wife and marry the real Louise Barry. There seemed small prospect of their hopes being gratified, for the angry husband did not give up the quest for John Keith for two years, and during those two years he never once came home.