e
Rev. Dr. Beresford Jones, Mr. Alden Lytton, of
Richmond, to Miss Emma Angela, only daughter of the
late Charles Cavendish, Governor of Virginia.

She read no further that day. There were other marriages following this;
but she felt no curiosity now about them. And there was a formidable row
of death notices, headed by the obituary of Mrs. Cavendish, but she did
not even see it.

The announcement of the marriage had taken her by surprise. She had not
expected to see it for a month yet to come. And, as she did not observe
the notice of Mrs. Cavendish's death, she could not understand why the
marriage had been hastened by so many weeks.

"So it is over," she said. "It is over, and it has been over for five
days. They are in the midst of their happiness, enjoyed at the expense
of my misery. Theirs is a fool's paradise from which I could eject them
at any moment; but I will not--not just yet. The longer I suspend the
blow the heavier it will fall at last. They will carry out their
programme, I presume; so far, at least, as to go upon their bridal trip
to Europe. I could stop them on the eve of their voyage; but I will not.
I will let them go and return, and hold their wedding-reception, and
then, in the midst of their joy and triumph, in the presence of their
admiring friends--"

She paused to gloat with demoniac enjoyment over the picture her wicked
imagination had conjured up.

--"Then I will turn all their joy to despair, all their triumph to
humiliation, all their glory to shame! And I will do all this
alone--alone, or use others only as my blind tools.

"Of course they will take this city on their way to New York to embark
for Europe. And they will call on me to show me their happiness, and
take a keener relish of it from seeing the contrast of my misery. But
they shall be disappointed in that, at least. I will not be dragged at
the wheels of their triumphal car. I will not stay here to receive them.
I will leave town, and stay out of it until I am sure that they have
passed through and left it."

She kept her word.

She went down to Forestville, ostensibly to relieve a poor family
suffering under an accumulation of afflictions, but really to be out of
the way of the bridal pair, and to get up evidence in the case she
intended to bring against the husband of Emma Cavendish.

When she had been but a few days at Forestville she received a letter
from Miss Romania Crane--who in her absence kept up