"Well, I was all alone, having of no child'en. But the boys they was very good to me, and seen to the funeral and all that. And, after it was all over, I stayed on in the shanty, partly because I hated to leave it, and partly because the equinoctial storms had ris' the rivers and carried away the bridges, and made the travel between Wild Cats and St. Sebastian awful hard and risky.

"In that first year of my widdyhood, I had a heap of offers from one and another of the boys, for there wa'n't many wimmin there; but I snubbed 'em all.

"It wasn't till the next summer that I went to St. Sebastian to see about drawing out my money, or a part of it, to go East.

"Well, there at the Hidalgo Inn, I met with Col. Anglesea, and sorter got acquainted long of him. He had been out on the plains with a lot of English officers, a-hunting of the buffalo, or pretending to do it, and now he was on his way home, so he said--gwine to sail from 'Frisco to York, and then to Liverpool. He said as he had inwested half a million o'

money in Californy. Lord sakes, how that man lied!

"Then, like a plagued fool as I was, with n.o.body to advise me--don't tell me about wimmen having any sense! They always get coaxed, or swindled, or scared out o' their money!--I goes and tells that blamed beat and cheat about my hundred and twenty-three thousand four hundred and fifty dollars, and asks his opinion how I ought to inwest it.

"And he tells me c.o.c.k-and-bull stories about companies, and shares, and per cents. and things that I knew nothing about. And he wanted me to give him the money to inwest for me, and save me the trouble and 'noyance.

"But I wasn't quite such a donkey as that, nyther! I just wouldn't trust him with a dollar! No more would I sign any paper that he brought me. No, not one! Yet I did like the insiniwating creetur' to such an extent, even then, that I couldn't bear to hurt his feelings by seeming to distrust him, and so I always made some excuse for not doing what he recommended.

"After that he changed his course and began to make love to me! Lord, how that man could make love! Ask that gal of your'n! I reckon she could tell you!

"Well, I don't know how it was to this day! I must 'a' been bewitched! But I was such a cornsarned fool that I went and married him! And two weeks after that he levanted, with all my money! Leastways, all to a trifle of about twenty dollars, which I had about me in my room, and which just was enough to take me back to Wild Cats' Gulch. And, if ever you did see a chop-fallen cuss going home, that was me! The hotel people had even kept my boxes for my board!

"Oh, but the boys was mad when they heard all about it! They was 'most as mad with me for being such a fool as they was with him for robbing me. But they put me up to following of him, telling me if any one could run a man to earth, it would be an injured woman. And they put up a pile for me, and took my boxes out of quod, at the Hidalgo, and started me on my way to 'Frisco, for I knowed he had made for that port.

"And there I found out he had sailed in the _Eglea_ for New Orleans, and I took the first steamer to that port. There I learned that he had stopped at the St. Charles Hotel for a few days, and had then gone to Savannah.

Lord, what a chase I had! From Savannah to Mobile; from Mobile to Havana; from Havana back to St. Francisco. And there I heard that he had sailed for Baltimore!

"Well, I took pa.s.sage on the _Blue Bird_, bound for Baltimore. There I made the acquaintance of young Roland Bayard, the third mate, who was very good to me. Well, we got to be such good friends that at last, one day, I up and told him all my troubles. And when he heard the name of my rascally husband:

"'Anglesea,' says he--'Angus Anglesea!' says he. 'Why, that's the man who is staying with a neighbor of ours down in Maryland. My old aunt wrote to me about him in the very last letter, which met me at 'Frisco.'

"And he took the letter out of his pocket and gave it to me to read, and, sure as a gun, it was my fine colonel as the old aunty was writing about!

And I said to the young man as I must have been put on a false scent to be running about among Southern ports, when he had gone North. And he said there was no doubt in the world that the man himself had put me on the false scent.

"Whether or no that was so, I thought it was very providential I had fell in long o' this young mate, and we got to be fast friends. And we laid a plot that we should say nothing about it, and he would take me to his aunty's, and I should go by the name of my first husband, Wright, and lay low and say nothing, for fear my colonel should find me out and run away again before I could nab him.

"Well, we reached Baltimore early in this month, you know, and young Bayard got leave and came home, fetching me along of him. And the fust news as we heard when we got here was as my fine gentleman was gwine to be married to a fine heiress.

"But Roland and I, we winked at each other, and never let on to a single soul as I was the colonel's lawful wife. We thought we'd just have lots of fun out of the game, anyways, and wait till the wedding day, when all the people should be in the church, and then--in the midst of his triumph--pull him down and disgrace him before all the world.

"Lord, we didn't mean to wait for the last minnit, when the ceremony was over, but to stop it at the very beginning, where the parson asks, 'if any one knows just cause,' you know. But that consarned beast of an old mule of Miss Sibby's wouldn't make time. There, that's all!"

At this moment a note was brought in and handed to Mrs. Force.

She opened it, and read:

"Notwithstanding all seeming proof, I solemnly swear to you that I never was married to the woman Wright; that I was free to contract matrimony when I married your daughter, and that she is my lawful wife.

I must see you alone, when I will prove this to your satisfaction.

A. A."

CHAPTER XXV

THE GUEST SHOCKS HER HOST

Mrs. Force turned pale as death while she read the note. When she finished it, she stooped forward and dropped it into the red heart of the coal fire.

Then, averting her head, that no one might see the blanching of her face, she said, in a tone of enforced calmness, to the waiting servant:

"Tell the messenger that there is no answer."

The servant bowed and withdrew.

"What is it, dear?" inquired Abel Force.

"Nothing that needs attention to-night," she replied, with a.s.sumed indifference.

And Abel Force, thinking it to be some little domestic matter that might not be discussed before a stranger, and perfectly unsuspicious of anything secret or serious--thinking no evil--dropped the subject then and there, and forgot.

"Ah-h-h! Yaw-w-w! I never was so tired and sleepy in all my life before!"

cried Mrs. Anglesea, throwing herself back in her chair, and stretching her mouth and limbs with a tremendous yawn.

"No doubt you are, madam. You have had a most fatiguing day. Permit me!"

said Mr. Force, and he lighted a wax taper and put it in her hand.

"And what on earth am I to do with this, old man?" she demanded, between two gapes.

"It is to light you to your room," said Mrs. Force, answering for her dismayed husband. "Can you find your way, or shall I see you to the door?"

"Is it that fine room fixed up with maple wood and blue calico, where the gals took me to take off my bonnet and wash my face and hands?"

"Yes, it is the same. Shall I show you the way?"

"Lord, no, 'oman! I ain't a baby! But I reckon you may toss me in a nightgown and nightcap before you go to bed yourself, for, you know, I come here right from the church, and, of course, didn't fetch any 'long o'

me."

"I think you will find all those conveniences laid out on your bed," said Mrs. Force.

"All right! Good-night, ole 'oman!" And she kissed Mrs. Force, to that lady's dismay. "I'm sorry I had to make such a fuss in the church to-day, but I couldn't help it, and it is all for the best. Good-night, ole man!

Lord, why, I feel just as if I had knowed you all the days of my life, and you was my own kinfolks! So here goes!" And she stood on tiptoes and pulled down Mr. Force's black-whiskered face and kissed him.

And he bore the punishment with much more fort.i.tude than his wife had done.

Then the frank, rude, handsome creature, in whom there was no wickedness at all, took up her wax taper again, laughed, nodded and went out.

"Well, for a woman who has been robbed of her fortune and forsaken by her husband, she takes life quite cheerfully," said Elfrida Force, with a touch of sarcasm in her manner.

"It is her healthy const.i.tution and happy, animal spirits that enables her to do so," said Abel Force, apologetically.