me no peace. You will never understand how
terrified I was of mother. And he seemed so kind and was going to be
rich. He owned part of a gold mine--mother was sure it would mean
millions. But it didn't. Mother was fooled there!" with a gleam of
malice. "The mine turned out to be worthless--after we were married."

Callandar drew a sharp breath and shook himself as if to throw off the
horror of some enthralling nightmare.

"You married him--this man--knowing that you were a wife already?"

"A fine sort of wife!" He quivered at the coarseness of meaning in her
tone. "We were never really married."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that it was all a farce. What's a ceremony? For all I knew it
wasn't even legal. When you did not answer my letter I thought that was
what your silence meant. I asked a girl to ask her father who was a
lawyer if a marriage was legal when the girl was under age and the
parents didn't know about it. He said sometimes it wasn't."

Callandar groaned. "And you married again--on that?"

"Yes. I had to, anyway. I couldn't hold out against mother. I daren't
tell her. She left us after the wedding, when the mine failed, and went
back to Cleveland. It was there she must have got your letter, and the
note I found last night. And when you came, she told you I was dead--to
save the scandal. She was always different after that, though I never
guessed why. It was a lie, you see, and mother was terrified of telling
lies. It was the only thing she was afraid of. She believed that liars
go to hell."

The tone in which she spoke of the probable torment of her mother was
quite without feeling. Callandar listened in fascinated wonder. Was this
Molly?--Pretty, kind-hearted Molly?

"I cannot understand," he said in a stifled voice. "It is all too
horrible! This man you married--"

"He is dead. He died a year ago. I thought at first that you must have
found out and that was why you came. I should have died of fright if you
had come while he was alive. He would never have understood--never! He
didn't like mother but he wasn't afraid of her. And I think that at last
he suspected that she had made me marry him for his money. But he was
always good. At first I was afraid all the time--oh, it was dreadful! I
think I have always been afraid--all my life--" Without warning she
threw her hands out wildly and broke into choking sobs, crying with the
abandon of a frightened child. Yet no one could have mistaken the
impu