It's an accomplished fact, Mrs. Miriam Dane, and there's
my wedding-ring."
She held up her left hand. Among the opals, and pearls, and pale
emeralds flashing there, gleamed a little circlet of plain gold--badge
of woman's servitude.
"Married!" Miriam gasped, in indescribable consternation. "I thought you
were to marry Sir Roger Trajenna?"
"So I was--so I would have, if I had been let alone. But that letter
from you came--that forgery, you know--and I was carried off and
married, willy-nilly, to somebody else. Who that somebody else is, I
don't know."
"You don't know?"
"Haven't the slightest idea! I've a good mind to tell you the story. I
haven't told any one yet, and the weight of a secret a month old is
getting a little too much for me. It would be a relief to get some one
else to keep it for me, and I fancy you could keep a secret as well as
any one else I know."
"I can keep your secret, Mollie. Go on."
So Mollie began and related the romantic story of that fortnight she had
passed away from home.
"And you consented to marry him," Miriam exclaimed, when she had got
that far--"you consented to marry a man totally unknown to you, whose
face you had not even seen, whose name you did not even know, for the
sake of freedom? Mollie, you're nothing but a miserable little coward,
after all!"
"Perhaps so," said Mollie, defiantly.
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